Costly Signals: Part One
by dharmamonkey
Summary: After a really bad day at work, a person is capable of just about anything. Alcohol, social experimentation, & an aggressive verbal exchange bring B&B to the edge of a raw standoff & pushes one of them too far. AU. A collab-fic w/Lesera128.
1. Well Enough and Three Dollar Wells

**Title: Costly Signals  
>By: <strong>_**dharmamonkey**_** and **_**Lesera128**_**  
>Rated: M<strong>

**Disclaimer: **_Hart Hanson owns _Bones_—alas._

**A/N: **_This story takes place at the very end of season 3, just before the events of the episode 3x14 - "The Wannabe in the Weeds."_

_This story is a collaboration with the amazingly talented __**Lesera128. **__It all began with her reviewing one of my stories, and me revewing one of hers, and a PM conversation following thereafter, during which we exchanged story ideas for Bones fics. Many PMs and a half-dozen emails later, we decided to co-write a fic. We brainstormed the story idea, divided up the writing duties—she being a great Brennanizer (particularly when mouthiness is needed, as Lesera128 says), me being a specialist in writing SFB (err, frustrated Booth, of course)—and went to work. This story is the product of that collaboration. It turned out to be longer, more complex and (we can only hope) better than we anticipated it would be when we set out to write a raw and angsty little ficlet about what happens when B&B get wasted after a very shitty day in the field and unfness ensues._

_The moral of the foregoing story is that __**reviews matter**__**. **__Reviews are the interactive life's blood of fan fiction. Reading without reviewing short-changes both writer and reader. So, don't be a lurker—__**leave a review. **__We want to know what you think and, besides, reviewing fosters good karma (and we all need that, right?)._

**Content Warning:**_This story is stuffed to the rafters with naughty language and some pretty epic unfness. (We imagine that's part of the reason you are here, in this section of the Bones archive, reading it.) Suffice it to say, sensitive readers should look elsewhere. All others, read on, and you might keep a cold washcloth or bucket of ice handy. The authors are not responsible for any physical distress readers may experience as a result of the seriously "guh" content that follows. Consider yourself warned._

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER 1 – Well Enough and Three Dollar Wells<strong>

Brennan's evening appeared to be starting out well enough.

After noticing how increasingly negative and moody her best friend had become after returning to the lab sans Brennan's standard issue G-man favorite accessory, Angela knew _something_ had happened. It didn't seem to be anything so major as to go beyond the normal back and forth as far as the merry war in which the partners usually seemed to engage on a daily basis went, but Angela knew Brennan would benefit from being around some people as opposed to the bones in Limbo_—_just in case. So, after a brief stop over at Brennan's apartment, where her frumpy pumpkin-colored button down blouse had been exchanged for a simple black halter top and matching heels, to happy hour the pair had gone on the pretext of Brennan's need to bond socially with Angela as a close female friend.

"_What is the symbolic meaning of participating in this ladies' night ritual with you, Ange?" Brennan had asked._

"_Simple, sweetie. We're going to go have some fun. Cheap booze, good music, sexy men to look at—a bit of dancing, a bit of daring, and who knows what could happen tonight," Angela had said as Brennan finished changing._

"_I know exactly what'll happen tonight. I'll have one or two drinks to show you that I support the idea of participating in a symbolic ritual to strengthen our bond as close female friends, but then I'm coming home and going to bed, Ange. The remains from the Greenbelt crime scene should be at the lab first thing in the morning, so I don't want to waste any time—"_

"_Yeah, yeah, yeah, Bren. Whatever. I got you. A couple of drinks, and home for another boring night of your boring life it is," Angela sighed. "Really, Bren, one of these days you've got to ease up, just a little bit. You have no idea how much you're missing."_

"_Missing what?" Brennan asked in confusion._

_Shaking her head in resignation, Angela said, "Life, sweetie. Life."_

Despite, Angela's vague words, Brennan hadn't thought much of her friend's wistfulness now that they had arrived at their destination. It was Wednesday evening, and the club Angela picked out as the site at which they would engage in their ritualistic bonding, Gleam, struck Brennan as a typical urban regentrification project: a hundred year-old, two-story warehouse constructed of red brick with tall casement windows and a wide stone staircase in front. The front fascia revealed the building was originally the Patterson building and was constructed in 1896, which amused Brennan, who wondered what the outwardly prim Victorian era builder would have thought about the building's present incarnation as a nightclub. The front of the building was dominated by a bright blue neon eye with yellow neon eyelashes and a bright white, star-shaped flash in the corner (presumably the "gleam" to which the club's name referred), beneath which the club's name was unfurled in flickering yellow neon.

As the walked up to the entrance, Angela waved at the doorman who greeted her by name with a quick smile. Bypassing the queuing line of other patrons who yelled in protest as Angela and Brennan walked by without paying any cover charge, the pair quickly entered the club and were greeted by a strong base of pounding music and the pungent odors of alcohol, the glycerin of the house fog machines, and a combination of various perfumes and colognes used to cloak the strong body odors fueled by excessive amounts of testosterone, estrogen, and many other hormones that dominated the behavior of individuals who had come to this club on this particular evening.

"It's great, isn't it?" Angela yelled to Brennan over the din of the music and other club noises.

"It seems to be a fairly standard representative of Washington's club scene," Brennan conceded.

"Gleam hasn't been open that long, but they've got some great theme nights. Wednesday is Ladies Night, but I've been on Thursday nights which is 80s Night. I'm friends with one of the DJs, and he told me they hold drag shows twice a month on Monday nights that I haven't had a chance to go to yet, but it all sounds like fun, doesn't it?" Angela asked.

"Define 'fun'," Brennan responded.

Rolling her eyes, Angela suddenly realized that they needed alcohol—quickly—if for no other reason than so she could maintain her own sanity while dealing with Brennan's apparent uptight crankiness and, of course, her usual maddeningly-dense and mind-numbing literality.

"Okay, Bren, let's go get a drink. I know there are several drink specials tonight, I'm just not sure what they are. I think the bar upstairs is less crowded than the one down here, so head to the stairs on your right, huh?" Angela yelled, pointing with a finger in the direction she had indicated.

Nodding, Brennan moved as her friend had requested. A while later, drinks having been procured, the pair of friends sat next to each other on two stools at the upstairs bar. For some inexplicable reason, Brennan had become quite attached to her seat, and refused to move once she procured it. Angela's eyes were a bit more glassy than her friend's, as attested to by the two empty martini glasses that sat in front of her while she gratefully clasped a third in her left hand. The wood in front of Brennan's space on the bar, however, remained empty, much to Angela's chagrin. Hoping that a new tactic might work to distract Brennan, Angela tapped her on the shoulder and pointed at the far side of the bar.

"Ooooh, there's one, Bren," Angela said, looking up over the edge of her martini glass.

"There's one what, Ange?" Brennan said, holding her margarita and sipping it slowly.

"A _guy_, Bren. A cute one… who seems to be checking you out," Angela said. "You see, the one with the light brown hair? I mean, yeah, he's a bit short, but he's been making eyes at you for about ten minutes."

"Really? I hadn't noticed. It's fortuitous that you observed that, Ange. Thank you. Why do you believe him to be checking me out? Do you think it's a club detective who finds our behavior suspicious?" Brennan asked, mildly alarmed.

Sighing, as Angela's original assessment that it was going to be one of _those _nights, shook her head at Brennan as she said, "No, sweetie… that's not what I meant. He's not checking you out because he thinks you're suspicious, but he's checking you out, as in giving appreciative stares because he's looked at your body, he thinks you're hot, and he likes what he sees."

"I fail to see why a male's opinion about my body is relevant tonight, Ange, when you said the purpose of tonight's socialization rituals was for use to imbibe alcoholic beverages, listen to music, and bond as females," Brennan said.

"You know what, Bren? Try to stay with me. It's ladies' night. This is a bar. We're here to see what kind of trouble we can get into for once. Are you with me?"

"Of course, Angela. I'm right by your side. I haven't moved at all since we got here," Brennan said confused.

"No, no, no," Angela muttered. "That's not what I meant—"

"Then—"

"Bren, that's it," Angela said, looking up and signaling the bartender whom they'd befriended. "Hey, Jerry! Can we get a couple more over here?" Angela called with a smile. Jerry inclined his head at Angela to confirm his acknowledgement of her request. Turning to her friend, Angela said, "You need another drink, Bren. Several, in fact."

"Why, Angela? I'm quite content with the current rate at which I am consuming the margarita I initially ordered," Brennan replied.

"Because," Angela said. "I'm never going to get a good buzz going if you're analyzing every single guy's actions in here beyond the point of if you think he's cute or not. So, more drinking, less scrutinizing. Besides, it's 3-for-1, so you need to get going and start catching up already. Oherwise, I'm going to be way more screwed up tomorrow than I had planned to be because we're going to have to start doing shots."

"Ange—" Brennan protested.

"No, sweetie. Finish that drink. Right now. Glug, glug. Then… woooo hooo!"

Brennan scowled at Angela. "Angela, I really don't want to—"

"Brennan—_now_."

Sighing, Brennan grabbed the margarita, but shook her head at Angela as she said, "Fine. But, I'm doing this under protest."

"I don't care, as long as you drink."

Throwing back her head, Brennan quickly finished the margarita. She stared at Angela for a minute before she set the glass back on the bar and turned to her best friend. "Happy now?"

"No," Angela said, smiling at the bartender and gesturing at Brennan's empty glass. "But, we both will be in about two more drinks, I think. Maybe three."

* * *

><p>Booth's day had started off well enough.<p>

He got called out to a case around ten that morning, swung by the Jeffersonian to pick up Bones and Hodgins and then drove to Greenbelt Lake Park, a municipal park in Prince George's County where a set of mostly skeletonized human remains had been found under a pile of leaves by a dogwalker. The Maryland State Police Crime Lab had already begun to pick over the scene, which sent Bones into a bonafide rage, and she proceeded to rip the state crime techs new assholes even while the state/federal jurisdiction of the case was uncertain. Booth had managed to assert control of the situation after Hodgins found the remnants of a wallet with a Virginia driver's license, which—when checked against the national missing persons database—revealed that the bearer (presumably the female corpse) had been believed kidnapped from Williamsburg two years earlier, which made it a probable case of interstate kidnapping and landed the case squarely within FBI jurisdiction. Bones' tirade had already pissed off the staties, so Booth was all too willing to send an FBI tech to assist her in taking the remains back to the Jeffersonian, lest she do any more damage for one day—thank you very much—but he kept Hodgins at the scene to package and process the leaves, soil and sundry other muck that was the vic's last resting place.

By the time Hodgins had wrapped things up at Greenbelt Lake Park, it was nine o'clock, and Booth's mood had gone from foul to worse. The State Police detective he normally worked with on cases like this in this part of Maryland was on vacation, and his substitute—one Toby Waldsachs, whose name nearly caused Booth to piss his pants upon hearing it and which struck him as the lamest porn star name ever devised—was an insolent, ignorant ass who spent most of the afternoon stonewalling Booth's request that they turn over to the FBI the evidence they collected at the scene before the FBI and Jeffersonian teams showed up. Booth had to call Caroline to get her involved, which meant he ended up getting a call from Cullen, who railed on him for his failure to timely assert federal jurisdiction and thereafter attain the prompt cooperation of the local law enforcement authority—as if Booth hadn't already explained twice about how the staties failed to find, or at least admit they'd found, and thereafter refused to acknowledge the probative value of the Virginia photo ID in establishing presumptive federal jurisdiction_—_and so by the time he and Hodgins crossed into the District, Booth had been in a slow, steady smolder for hours.

He took Hodgins back to the Jeffersonian to drop off his forensic kit, shower and change out into his street clothes, and, since Hodgins had rode in with Angela that morning, was going to give him a ride home. He and Booth were halfway to his place in Benning Ridge when he got a text from Angela asking him to meet her at a nightclub called "Gleam."

"It's called _what_?" Booth asked as he took a series of right turns to get them turned around and headed towards the nightclub.

"Gleam," Hodgins said with a wry smile.

"Sounds totally gay," Booth said with an arched eyebrow. "Not that I put it past Angela to go to that kind of place, but—"

"Nope," Hodgins said, "but this one is totally hetero, dude. It's ladies' night."

"You let your girlfriend go to ladies' night by herself?" Booth asked, narrowing his eyes as he shook his head. "That place is going to be a friggin' meatmarket, Hodgins. And Angela—she's a dry-aged, ten-ounce New York strip. Certified prime."

"Putting aside the fact that you just called my fiancée a steak, which I may or may not tell her depending on how tonight goes, a little possessive there, aren't we?" Hodgins snickered.

"About what?" Booth retorted, accusingly. "Angela's my friend, and the thought of—ugh! I can't believe you aren't _more _possessive. I'd sure be, if it was me."

Hodgins laughed. "If you think she wouldn't kick your ass if you tried that, you don't know Angie."

Booth shook his head dismissively. "Whatever," he growled.

Hodgins stared at him, wondering if, in the nearly four years since the first case Booth worked with the Jeffersonian, he had ever seen the agent in such a nasty mood. His face was the very portrait of tension: his jaw was tense, his lower mandible jutting slightly forward, his lower lip held between his teeth and his normally open and friendly brown eyes seemed nearly black with a smoldering fury that Hodgins didn't understand. _If he weren't forty pounds heavier than me and capable of crushing me like an ant, _he mused, _I'd tell him he should go in that bar with me because he really, really needs to get laid. _

"Stop staring at me, Hodgins," Booth growled.

Hodgins rolled his eyes. _Yeah, he definitely needs to get laid._

"Now where is this place again?"

"Ninth and F Street," Hodgins replied as Booth rounded the corner onto F Street. "You can just drop me in front, Booth." Booth glared at Hodgins out of the corner of his eye.

"Maybe I'll come in for a drink," he said. "I've had a pretty shitty day."

He loosened his tie, unknotted it and threw it in the back seat as he pulled the car over to the side of the street in front of Gleam. He nearly cracked the steering column cover as he roughly shoved the gearshift into park. He stepped out before the valet could open the door and saw the valet swallow nervously and take a step back, eyeing him cautiously. Booth opened the back door, draped his suit coat on the back seat and handed the key to the valet. Hodgins watched him walk around the back of the truck, rolling up the sleeves of his French blue dress shirt and unbuttoning the top two buttons as he muttered something about the lack of parking in this part of D.C. and valet parking being a legalized form of racketeering.

* * *

><p>At some point after Angela's earlier comments, Brennan sat staring at the bar, six empty margarita glasses lined up in front of her. A genuine smile and a generous tip towards the bartender had ensured that the glasses had remained exactly as Brennan arranged them, a small shrine of Brennan's trophies. Angela, glancing at her watch, grew impatient as Hodgins had still not arrived, and she was tired of watching Brennan play building blocks with the margarita glasses. Leaning into Brennan, Angela yelled out to her friend over the hypnotic beat of the music.<p>

"Hey, Bren?"

"Yes, Ange?"

"You know, I was thinking, we've kinda been up here for a long time. Why don't we go cash out the tab and go down to the dance floor on the lower level?" Angela said, inclining her head in the vague direction of the stairs that led back down to the first floor.

"While I find the allure of the music appealing, Ange, can't we dance up here just as easily? It's not as crowded, and as long as we stay in visual distance of my seat, I know we won't lose my spot at the bar. I'm getting to know our bartender, Jerry, very well," Brennan replied.

"Yeah, I know," Angela muttered. "He's the only guy you've talked to the entire time we've been here."

"So? He's the only one who's served a purpose, in as far as there was a logical reason for me to make the effort to engage in conversation with him," Brennan said. "I thought you said the purpose of this evening's social excursion was for us to bond as females, not for me to solicit males for sex."

Stifling a groan of boredom, Angela said, "Oh, Brennan. Come on. Why can't it be both?"

"No, you come on, Ange!" Brennan immediately interrupted Angela's impending tirade. "You were the one who insisted I start consuming the margaritas in such large quanties. I still have two more to drink before I have reached the number of beverages that will satisfy the 3-for-1 promotion for which we've already paid…And, like I already told you, I have no intention of accepting any invitations from any men this evening. I will _not _be ending my evening by having sex tonight, with anyone, under any circumstances."

"Oh, all right!" Angela yelled. "Fine. We can stay. But, you're really missing out on the opportunity of a lifetime, Bren."

"I acknowledge your opinion, Angela, but I'm happy where I am," Brennan said.

"Fine," Angela repeated. "We can stay. But, on one condition, Brennan. You've got to stop hunching over these glasses like you're Gollum and they're the one true ring. If I wanted to hang out with a socially inept hobbit, I would've brought Zach."

"I don't know what that means—"

"It means you're going to strike up a new conversation with the next guy who smiles at you, even if you don't want to go home with anyone, and even for some strange reason, don't want to get laid tonight," Angela said. "But, you're buying me another drink. Several, actually. And, then, you're going to explain to me what in the hell is going on. I've never known you to be one to turn your nose up at the chance for sex—"

"Fine," Brennan said. "I agree to your terms. But, I find it highly unlikely that any of the men within our vicinity will actually be brave enough to attempt to initiate a conversation with either one of us. And, as for the issue of explaining, there's nothing to explain. I'm just not in the mood."

"Not in the mood? _Riiiigght,_" Angela said, her eyes leveling on Brennan. "And, you're right. No guys are going to come up to us if you keep scowling like a mad Frodo Baggins with your wall of margarita glasses," Angela snickered. "You've got to lighten up, Bren. We're supposed to be having fun, and all I've done over the past hour is what you learn the first step in LaToya Jackson's Cheap Party Tricks: Teach Yourself Magic Edition. It's been _lame! _And, not in the mood my ass. You've been uptight all night. Something happened with Booth today, didn't it? You only get this way when something pisses you off about Booth."

"I don't—"

"Bren!"

Brennan recognized Angela's exasperated tone. Letting her thought remain unfinished, Brennan decided that perhaps her friend was right. Maybe she did need to have another drink and talk to someone she didn't know. A bit of casual conversation, especially after the rather grueling morning she had had with the best and brightest of the State of Maryland Become-a-Law-Enforcement-Officer by completing your degree via Budget Value's Correspondence School Class of the Week $9.99 Special had left Brennan somewhat in an antisocial mood, might be just the thing she needed to purge the metaphorical rut she had felt mired in all day.

It actually hadn't started out _that _badly, and Brennan would've been the first one to compartmentalize the snickered comments that had been made about her behind her back when the field techs thought she wasn't listening. The words 'old maid' and 'hard-up harpy' had stuck in her mind, and Booth's rather foul temper hadn't helped matters either, Brennan recalled. Instead of reassuring her about the impertinence and inaccuracy of such statements, Booth had merely remained quiet after a parting vague comment about the importance of appropriate footwear sizes in determining metaphorical verisimilitude that still left Brennan puzzled.

"I'm not talking about Booth, Ange. He was a complete Neanderthal at the crime scene today."

"Oh?" Angela asked, suddenly curious. "What happened?"

"Nothing," Brennan replied, as Jerry suddenly appeared with the drinks Angela had ordered. Reaching for the glass that held the remnants of her first margarita, Brennan quickly drained it, and then reached for the new one. She swallowed half of the green concoction in one gulp as Angela watched in appreciative silence.

_Nothing happened today,_ Angela mused. _Right. One word about Booth, and Brennan starts downing margaritas like they're going out of style. Nothing happened, my ass._

"Bren?"

Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, Bren flushed a bit as the tequila started to warm her blood from the pit of her stomach. "Yes, Ange?"

"So, you gonna tell me what happened now or what?"

Pursing her lips, Brennan shook her head. "Nope. There's nothing to tell. Now, if you really want me to talk to a guy, then I suggest you see which of these men currently attempting to establish eye contact with me is the best choice, and make a recommendation, because I'm done talking about Booth for tonight."

"Oh, really?" Angela asked. Brennan nodded.

"Yes, really," Brennan said. _Hard-up harpy, my ass. I don't need to get laid just to prove I can handle any of these men, even Booth himself if he were to show up here like I conjured him from a magician's hat. A man is merely a set of x and y chromosomes, and I can handle any man who's stupid enough to think he can get the better of me. No man can, no man ever will, and that's just how it is. _"Now, which guy do you think is the best choice?"

Yes, maybe the chance to exercise some of her own social skills and collect some new data was exactly what she needed, as she watched Angela scan the room and eventually make her recommendation.

* * *

><p>Booth set one foot inside Gleam and was instantly reminded of everything he hated about nightclubs: the mind-numbing pulse of the structureless, directionless trance beat, the clichéd swirl of black-light polka dots reflecting onto the floor from the mirrored disco ball that hung in the middle of the dance floor, the comingled smell of sweat, perfume and body wash on the one hand and gin, tequila and Jägermeister on the other. It was early yet—only ten o'clock—but the place was already starting to fill up. Booth guessed the malefemale ratio to be one to two, but noted from the composition of the line of young men queued up to pay the cover charge at the door that the ratio would soon even out.

Hodgins nudged Booth's arm as they made their way toward the bar. "Did you know that several legal challenges have been brought in D.C. courts asserting that ladies' nights in bars violate the Civil Rights Act of 1871, all of them unsuccessful?"

"That's nice, Hodgins," Booth grumbled.

The DJ let the trance music fade and threw on a nu-metal, hip-hop piece that Booth recognized vaguely from one of the local hard rock radio stations:

_All I know  
>time is a valuable thing<br>Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings  
>Watch it count down to the end of the day<br>The clock ticks life away...  
><em>

_It's so unreal  
>Didn't look out below<br>Watch the time go right out the window  
>Trying to hold on but didn't even know<br>Wasted it all just to  
>Watch you go...<em>

Booth smirked. The trance music that was playing when they first walked in was on the way to giving him a headache when the DJ switched tunes. So, in a sense, the current pick was an improvement over the trance crap that preceded it, but it still didn't seem exactly the kind of song that lends itself to guys hitting on hot girls to get them to come home with them, which was the ultimate point of ladies' night. _Whatever. _This hip-hoppy, nu-metal stuff wasn't quite his cup of tea, either, but at least it had a structure and a purpose, and wouldn't give him a headache—at least, not in the time it would take him to knock back a couple of Jamesons, neat. Because today was the shittiest day he'd had in a long while, and hell, he hadn't even got shot at or had to shoot anyone.

_I kept everything inside and even though I tried, it all fell apart  
>What it meant to me will eventually be a memory of a time when I tried so hard<br>And got so far  
>But in the end<br>It doesn't even matter..._

"Let me get this, dude," Hodgins said to him, scanning around the room for Angela.

"Okay," Booth said. "Thanks." He took a deep breath, trying to calm his nerves as Hodgins mumbled something to the bartender about running a tab.

Handing him a heavy glass with a generous pour of Jameson, Hodgins smiled. "Sorry about today, Booth," he said. "Dr. B got a little out of control this morning. She takes the mission really seriously, and sometimes she can get a little intense."

"I know," Booth hissed, enjoying the burn of the whiskey as it seared his tongue and throat. "I know how she can be." He took another long sip of his Irish whiskey. "More than anyone," he added for no reason in particular. "I got my ass seriously chewed by both Caroline and Cullen. Between those two and that State Police asshole Toby Wildsex or whatever the fuck his name was, I got the ass-chewing trifecta today."

"Sorry, dude," Hodgins said, then fell silent, unsure of what else to say. He watched Booth, who sat at the bar, his normally straight-backed posture crooked as he sat there hunched over his drink, staring at the half-ounce of amber liquor that remained in his glass. The song on the PA changed, and Booth glanced up, narrowing his eyes as he mentally identified the band, the song name and album, then returned his gaze to his whiskey. As the song's guitar and piano intro gave way to the first verse, he lifted his glass to his lips, paused, then tossed back the rest of his drink.

_She had hair like Jeannie Shrimpton back in 1965  
>She had legs that never ended<br>I was halfway paralyzed.  
>She was tall and cool and pretty and she dressed as black as coal<br>If she asked me to I'd murder, I would gladly lose my soul..._

Hodgins looked over at him and shook his head at how quickly Booth had drained the eight-dollar glass of whiskey. _At that rate, I might be better off buying him Dewars, _Hodgins mused. His eyes met those of the bartender and, with slight jerk of his chin, he ordered Booth another round of Jameson. He had never seen Booth this way—a dark, brooding Heathcliff, silently pounding back whiskeys like they were going out of style—and it worried him.

_Well she held a bass guitar and she was playing in a band  
>And she stood just like Bill Wyman<br>Now I am her biggest fan.  
>Now I know I'm one of many who would like to be your friend<br>And I've got to find a way to to let you know I'm not like them..._

* * *

><p>It has often been said that when the student is ready, the master or teacher will appear. In Brennan's case, the statement held some applicability when, not ten minutes after she had made her decision, a stocky young man with light brown hair came up to the bar carrying a shot glass after Brennan had made one small smile when he glanced in her direction. It was the same guy from earlier, the one who had been hanging around the part of the bar where Brennan and Angela had been holding court. The guy set the drink down in front of Brennan's empty wall of margarita glasses and smiled at her.<p>

"Excuse, me. I'm sorry to disturb you, but I think the bartender brought your drink order over to me by mistake. I didn't order this—"

"Stop," Brennan said, raising her hand in a corresponding gesture.

"Pardon?"

"Please, cease your explanation and tell me if this is your attempt to use some type of spoken line to initiate a conversation with me because you wish to commence some type of mating ritual since I'm a sexually active female, and you appear to be a sexually active male in search of a partner with whom you can copulate?" Brennan rambled on in a very direct manner.

Smiling sheepishly, the young man inclined his head and said, "Whoa. Umm…wow. You just said all that without taking a single breath, didn't you, so… okay, yes. It's a line. I admit it."

"Your contrived candor is to be commended," Brennan nodded in approval.

"So, does that mean the line… is it… working?"

"That depends on what you hoped your efforts would allow you to obtain…."

"I'd say I've achieved my goal because you're still talking to me and haven't said 'fuck off' yet," he replied.

"Granted," Brennan said. "Can I ask you… why did you decide to come up to me just now?"

"Well," he began. "Because you're a very good looking woman, and I thought it might be a fun thing to come over here and see what would happen if I started talking to you since you seemed to be giving me a signal that such attentions wouldn't be unwelcome."

"Why 'fun'?" Brennan inquired. "What made you use that word?"

"'Fun'?" he repeated. "I, ah… I dunno. The random chance involved seemed appealing."

"You're correct," Brennan began, considering his words. "When you say that I'm a very good looking woman in comparison to the majority of the women currently located in close proximity to us, if one uses height and bodily proportions as comparative indicators."

"So, you think you're good looking just because you're tall and curvy?"

"Put in the vernacular, yes. The aesthetical value of curves in the female anatomy, as perceived by the male, indicate the high level of my fertility. Unconsciously, as a male who hopes to pass on his genes through procreation, you've responded to the visual cues. But, none of the process I've just described could accurately be labeled as random. It was very predictable from an anthropological point of view."

The man was quiet for a minute, and Brennan have expected him to spout some clipped retort in disgust before walking away. When he didn't, but grinned jovially at her, Brennan was somewhat surprised.

"I stand corrected then," he said. "But, I do insist on the validity of my approach. If nothing else, at least you're still talking to me now."

"But, your quantification of success began when you initiated the process under false pretenses. You only managed to started a dialogue with me because you attempted to deceive me with your false declaration about the bartender's alleged mix up regarding your drink order. Now, that's not very admirable behavior. In some parts of the world, certain tribes consider intentional verbal miscommunication between single males with single females to be one of the worst frauds that can be committed by one individual against another. Among the Kataran tribe of Malaysia, for example, your transgression would be punished by having one of the tribe's chief male warriors strip you naked, ritualistically beat you with a mat of woven palm fronds, and make you chant an ode to the sun god for two hours straight at midday without any water as a suitable form of punishment."

The man stared at Brennan for a minute and then said, "Point taken. And, while I'm extremely glad we're not in Malaysia at the moment from what you've just described, would it raise me in your estimate of my character if I apologized?"

"Perhaps," Brennan replied. "It _would_ serve as a large amount of proof to begin to establish an evidentiary basis that would act as counter the nefarious veneer I currently hold as the basis of my opinion of your personal worth, given the levels to which you stooped to gain an introduction with me."

"I'm sorry," he said immediately. "Please accept my humble apologies for trying to deceive you."

"Very well," Brennan nodded. "I accept your apology."

"Good," the man said. "Now that I've apologized, will you tell me your name, or do I have to beg?"

"Do you see the good looking brunette standing over there in red?" Brennan said, pointing with her finger. Angela stood a few feet away, seemingly watching Brennan with an intent eye, as she moved away to give Brennan room to work and play with her phone at the same time. The man nodded. "Well, that's my friend Angela. And, she would say that making you beg is an entertaining way to pass the time."

"And, what would _you_ say about it?" he asked, leaning in just a bit towards Brennan's personal space. She arched an eyebrow at his movement before responding.

"Before I decide to make a man beg, I need to be certain that he's worth my efforts and the energy that would be involved in the process that resulted in making him beg," Brennan said simply, and somewhat arrogantly. "He'd have to be quite exceptional to be worth my time."

"So, how do you go about making that decision, exactly?"

"Before I answer your question, I have one of my own that I'd like you to answer," Brennan countered.

"Okay," the man responded. "But, since we're negotiating now, you can ask your question, and I'll answer it…if you tell me your name."

"Agreed," Brennan said, tilting her head at the man. "It's Temperance."

"Temperance, ehh?" he smiled. "As in, you're name fits you because your literally quite the portrait of self-restraint…or, as in, your name fits you because its ironic given the fact that you've got quite a temper… or immoderate strain in that weird personality of yours?"

"Neither," Brennan said with a frown. "Instead, I like to think that my name says I both inspire and embody rational thought."

"Rationality is an important thing in life," the man agreed. "But, it can also be a good thing to let rational thought not overwhelm your perspective in life. Irrational thought can be fun, too, every once in a while. Gloriously irrational."

"I don't know if I concur with that assessment," Brennan responded.

"Why?'

"Because, I don't believe that I've ever been in a situation that I can recall where I've done something as illogical as to be purposely irrational, and thus, I have no evidentiary baseline against which I can begin to judge your assertion," Brennan told him.

"Well," the man said. "Then, maybe it's time you created, what did you call it? A new 'evidentiary baseline'."

"You're proposing an experiment of some sort?" Brennan asked with a critical eye staring at the man.

"Sure," he laughed. "You could call it that."

"While you proposal does sound intriguing, I'm hesitant to—"

"Oh, come on, Temperance," the man said. "Maybe that's what tonight is for, you know? Change your game a bit and let you take a walk on the wild side of irrationality?"

"I don't believe in fate, so your assertion is onerously imprecise and improbable," Brennan said. "However—"

"Yes?"

"The scientific value of your suggestion still has some appeal," Brennan conceded.

"Good."

"So," Brennan said. "I may agree with your proposal, pending an explanation of how you suggest we proceed, but first I want to know something because I have another question I would like you to answer."

"Sure. What?"

"What's _your_ name?" Brennan eyed him suspiciously.

"Oh," the man said, straightening up.

Standing at about 5'8 or 5'9, he was much shorter than the men Brennan usually allowed to engage in any extended form of social interplay with her. However, if she was going to experiment with intentional irrationalism, going against her established norms of behavior seemed like a promising way in which to begin her experiment. While the man was shorter than her normal preference, Brennan did concede he had a satisfying musculature in his upper body. While his elongated torso resulted in shortened legs which he didn't seem to emphasize in whatever weigh-training regimen he participated in, he did have appealingly broad shoulders. Brennan also found herself appreciating his dark brown eyes, refusing to admit that her appreciation might stem from any other fact besides the point that the brown of his irises indicated dominant genetics.

"My name's Ash," he said at last with a cheeky grin.

At his words, and at his effort of making a grin, Brennan swallowed back a bit of the wave of distaste that had come over her at his actions. Suddenly, she realized, his was not the pair of brown eyes and wide smile she wanted to be seeing. _Fuck, Brennan, get a grip. Stop that. Stop comparing. _She frowned again, resolving to concentrate only on the male who currently stood in front of her, particularly now that she knew from his ridiculous name that here was someone to play with at least.

"No, it's not."

"Pardon?"

"I highly doubt that 'Ash' is your legal name. I assume it must be a moniker you've adopted for your own purposes," Brennan said confidently.

Tilting his head at her with a strange look on his face, brow furrowed in confusion or annoyance, Brennan didn't know, the man who would be known as Ash asked, "Why do you think Ash isn't my real name? After all, wouldn't it be sorta stupid for me to lie to you since I've already done it once tonight? That would be like shooting myself in my own foot, wouldn't it?"

"I concur. However, you earlier attempt at disingenuous behavior does establish a pattern whereby, statistically, it is more likely that you would try to lie to me again if you thought it would benefit you in some way. Further, men do foolish things that can result in self-defeat when it comes to the pursuit of sexual partners. Particularly if they're not adroit at the social rituals involved in said pursuit," Brennan pointed out.

"That still doesn't tell me why _you_ think Ash isn't my real name. Only why you think I might have said it if it isn't," he countered.

"Fair point," Brennan said. "The reason I believe Ash to not be your real name is because it's extremely pretentious. And, while the persona you've socially constructed to improve your chances of successfully obtaining an opportunity to engage in sexual intercourse is one where pretension should be a tool or valuable asset for you, it would only work if you can legitimately circumvent social tells that indicate that such levels of pretension aren't feigned or forced. Since you haven't been successful in that goal, I've concluded the pretension is another dishonest signal sent on your behalf to me as a part of your unconscious signaling to convince me of the worthiness of your person as a potential partner for sexual intercourse. Ergo, I can only assume that Ash is not your given name, but one that you chose without realizing how ridiculous it actually is to other people, especially women with whom you hope to engage in coitus. Am I correct?"

"_Uhhhh_—"

"Yes?"

"I, ah…."

"Well?"

"….yes."

"Then, what's your legal name?" Brennan insisted.

Looking down, the response came reluctantly. "Richard."

"Richard….?"

"Richard Ashton Larraby V."

"You're the fifth male of your family to carry the moniker? Well, that would certainly explain your mental confusion as to why you think you should be able to pull off such social pretension despite a clear lack of economic resources to justify your initial assumption," Brennan observed.

"My what?"

"I don't have the time or deserve to explain anthropological theory to you, but suffice to say, an example of why you're a pretension paradox lies in your apparel. It's clear by the state of your wardrobe that you do not possess the financial resources necessary to appropriately merit such a naming legacy as the one your parents have foisted upon you. Perhaps, at some point in the past, did your family come from money, but lose it due to foolish investments or personal overindulgence in wealthy vanities? That would explain the traditional legacy being upheld, but also logically show why you have no significant wealth anymore," Brennan mused.

"Wait," the man said. "I'm…wait. Did you just call me poor… and a shabby dresser?"

"Not necessarily. I merely inferred that your persona does not accurately reflect either your social or economic status in our culture. Stylistically, your vestments are actually quite plain, but not necessarily of bad design from an aesthetic viewpoint. However, the quality of the material of the garments is indicative of an economical thread and cloth source," Brennan said.

Starting to turn red from being dressed down in such a specific way by a woman like Brennan, the man began to sputter. "I, ah—"

"Don't be embarrassed," Brennan immediately reassured him. "I assure you that most individuals would not be able to see through the shallowness of your constructed social identity. I'm just an extremely detailed oriented individual and my best friend's long term monogamous romantic partner is extremely well off. He's served as an excellent example for me to establish a baseline of comparison, as I explained earlier, is something I tend to do. You see, he too does not wear clothing with an extremely ostentatious or exaggerated style, but the quality of his clothing's fibers belies his extreme wealth and accurately corresponds to the fact that his full name – Jack Stanley Hodgins IV – is appropriately pretentious because he was named in correspondence with the naming patterns of his upper-class family's long-standing socio-cultural traditions."

Turning his head up at hers, the man suddenly muttered, "My mother calls me Rick. Is that better? Because, I have to tell you I feel fairly emasculated after bearing the brunt of your analytical processes, Temperance."

"I apologize. It wasn't my intent to negatively impact your mental outlook. I merely was stating a series of factual truths," Brennan said.

Moving to turn away, Rick said, "It's no problem."

"Your tone and movements contradict that statement," Brennan said. "It appears as if you've still taken offense at my words."

"No," Rick said. "Really. It's cool. I'm just going to go, though, I think."

"Wait!" Brennan suddenly said, standing up from her stool and turning to him. "Don't go. I thought you were going to help me in my experiment, remember?"

Looking up at her, Rick said, "Did you have something specific in mind that doesn't necessitate verbally deconstructing me?"

"Ummmm…." Brennan quickly scanned the bar, trying to latch on to an appropriate solution. The music, still beating at a steady trance, provided the soundtrack to her quick visual scan of the bar.

_You know tonight  
>I'm feeling a little out of control<br>Is this me  
>You wanna get crazy<br>Cause I don't give a..._

_I'm out of character_  
><em>I'm in rare form<em>  
><em>If you really knew me<em>  
><em>You'd know it's not the norm<em>

_Cause I'm doing things that I normally won't do_  
><em>The old me's gone I feel brand new<em>  
><em>And if you don't like it fuck you<em>

_The music's on and I'm dancing_  
><em>I'm normally in the corner just standing<em>  
><em>I'm feeling unusual<em>  
><em>I don't care cause this is my night<em>

_I'm not myself tonight_  
><em>Tonight I'm not the same girl (same girl)<em>

Brennan's eyes falling on Angela, Brennan turned to Rick and said, "Can you wait right here just for one minute? I'll be right back."

"Uh, sure, I guess."

"Save my spot," Brennan said. "I feel particularly attached to this vantage point and don't wish to lose my seat."

"Right."

Nodding, Brennan quickly turned and ran over to Angela.

"Ange!"

"Hey, sweetie!" Angela said. "How's it going?"

"He, ahh… I need your advice."

"Sure," Angela said. "Hodgins just texted me, by the way. He finally got here. Apparently, Booth was being particularly bitchy when they finished up at the scene, so it took him a little longer than he thought it would—"

Her head snapping up, Brennan said, "Angela, you didn't tell me Hodgins was joining us. I thought this was supposed to be a 'girls night out'. That's what you said, isn't it? And, please, don't talk to me about Booth."

Realizing her _faux pas_ through the haze of her martini-induced buzz, Angela said, "Hodgins wanted to grab a drink, Bren. That's all."

"But—"

Trying to distract her friend, Angela said, "You said you needed some advice with the hottie at the bar?"

Turning her head back, Brennan looked at Rick, who was watching her with a bit of impatience and uncertainty in his gaze.

"Uh, yeah," Brennan said. "What's something I can do with him that's irrational and a ritual of social significance in this setting?"

"Ummm," Angela said. "I think you just asked me what's something you can do with a guy like him that's fun in a bar?"

"Yes," Brennan confirmed.

"Oh," Angela said. "Okay. Umm… how about a body shot?"

"A body shot?"

"Yeah," Angela said. "Order a shot of something… usually tequila works best. You put the lime in your mouth, put the shot in your boobs, and let him lick your shoulder with the salt before he reaches down and drinks the tequila and grabs the lime from you."

"That sounds… very involved and loaded with heavily sexual meaning," Brennan said. "Is he allowed to do this with any help from me or his hands?"

"Ummmm, no, not usually," Angela said. "If he's any good, he won't need to, though."

Brennan considered her words and then asked, "And, you're sure this is an appropriate ritual to suggest?"

"Uhh, yeah, sure, Bren."

"Okay," Brennan said. "I'll be back in a little bit."

Going back up to Rick, Brennan leaned in and said, "My proposal to you is that we participate in a ritual where you will consume a shot of tequila from my person. Is that acceptable?"

"Uh," Rick said. "You want me to do a body shot off you?"

"Yes," Brennan said. "Do you feel that is significantly irrational an act given our prior conversation?"

"You've never had someone do a body shot off you before?" Rick asked.

"No."

"Ahhhh… okay, then. Yeah. I'd say for you, that sounds pretty irrational, Temperance."

"So," Brennan said, signaling to Jerry the bartender. "Shall we proceed in our experiment?"

Glancing once in appreciation at her shapely curves and the tight halter top she wore, Rick shrugged and said with a small grin, "Sure. What the fuck? I'm in…."

* * *

><p><em>Did we pique your interest with this one?<em>

_If so, (1) please, **please **leave a review and tell us what you think, and  
>(2) add this bad boy to your story alerts so you'll know when we post the next chapter.<em>

_But please, whatever you do, please leave us a review.  
><strong>Lesera128<strong> and I are on pins and needles wondering what you people think of this crazy fic of ours._


	2. Body Shots and Parting Shots

**Title: Costly Signals  
>By: <em>dharmamonkey<em> and _Lesera128_  
>Rated: M<strong>

**Disclaimer: **_Hart Hanson owns _Bones_—alas._

_**A/N:** This story is the result of my collaboration with **Lesera128. **I couldn't have written this on my own. If you don't have her on your author alerts, you should add her immediately, if not sooner. (I'm posting Part One, which has 3 chapters. She'll post Part Two, which also has 3 chapters. So, if you want to know how this ends, you'll need to have her on your alerts. Also, she writes awesome fics, so you should have her on your alerts anyway.)_

_Huge thanks to everyone for the absolutely amazing reviews we've received for the first chapter. So, without further ado, here's our second installment.  
><em>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 2 – Body Shots and Parting Shots<strong>

As soon as the bartender delivered Booth's second Jameson, the agent pulled the drink toward him greedily and, with a quick glance at Hodgins, raised it to his lips and took a long sip, then sighed heavily.

"_What?_" he growled at Hodgins, who raised his hands innocently and took a sip of his own whiskey.

Hodgins thought back to that morning. Booth had seemed his usual, jocular self when he picked Hodgins and Brennan up at the lab on the way to the scene: he and Brennan had engaged in their usual bickering on the way, something to do with the Mason-Dixon line, which led to a discussion of Cresap's War—an armed border dispute between Maryland and Booth's home state of Pennsylvania that was fought during the 1730s and which wasn't finally resolved until 1767 when the Mason-Dixon line was recognized as the official boundary between the two colonies—and everything seemed fine. Normal, really, for those two, who seemed unable to communicate if they weren't bickering. All hell broke loose shortly after they got out of Booth's SUV at the crime scene, when Brennan went absolutely ballistic on the Maryland State Police detective who was standing next to the remains and the four MSP Crime Lab technicians that were working nearby:

_"What the hell are you people doing?" she asked. Turning to Booth, she said, "Is this the best the Maryland State Police have? I don't remember this level of imbecility the last time we got called out to a crime scene in Maryland."_

_"Hey, lady," the detective said to her. "I don't know what your problem is, but—"_

_"I'll tell you what my problem is," she said, her voice edging lower and her pale eyes flashing in anger. "We haven't been here thirty seconds and it's clear as day that your team has compromised the probative value of much of the trace evidence."_

_"What are you talking about?" the detective snarled, gesturing with his ungloved hands. _

_"Well, for starters, where are your gloves, Detective?" She sneered the word "Detective" the same way Hodgins had heard her and Booth use the term "Doctor" in reference to Dr. Sweets. "You shouldn't be touching anything without gloves or standing anywhere near the gravesite without sterile booties. Secondly, your team never should have removed the remains from their original situs before removing and carefully cataloging the surrounding plant and mineral materials piece by piece, preserving the integrity of the material and any trace evidence that might be deposited thereon. It's clear that your team rifled through the leaf material and yanked the body out without doing any of that."_

_"What?" the detective said, nonplussed as he looked over to Booth for backup. Booth arched an eyebrow but said nothing as he glanced around to see if the scene had, in fact, been as botched as Brennan suggested it was. _

_"With a situation like this," she continued, "we need to know if this is a primary site or a secondary site for these remains, and the answer to that question depends entirely on the recovery of trace evidence so that my colleague Dr. Hodgins here can determine if there are any plant, mineral or chemical residues present on or near the remains that are inconsistent with the features of this site. Do you understand what I'm saying, Detective?"_

_The detective shrugged and looked again to Booth. "A body dump, Detective," Booth said, his voice level and measured. "She and Hodgins are looking for evidence to tell us whether this vic was killed here or killed elsewhere and dumped here, or perhaps even killed elsewhere, buried elsewhere for a time, then disinterred and then dumped here."_

_"You people can't process a crime scene the way you'd clean your garage," she hissed. "Picking up debris and tossing it into bags like it was yesterday's garbage. It is not enough to bag and tag, Detective." She was practically talking through clenched teeth. Hodgins actually felt sorry for the detective—if only a little. He'd seen her leave male interns in tears on their first day at the lab. "These crime scenes need to be processed with the same care and attention to detail that Heinrich Schliemann gave to the excavation of Troy." The look on the detective's face spoke a thousand words. He had no idea what she was talking about but it was clear he knew he was on the receiving end of a smackdown. "Layer by layer, paying attention to every detail, and preserving the details that we can't see in the field, so that Dr. Hodgins and my other colleagues can sift through the evidence on a microscopic level. And there's no excuse for not doing it right, Detective. Heinrich Schliemann's methods have been known to us since he published his findings about the Trojan sites at Hisarlik in his book _Troja und seine Ruinen _in 1875. People like you have had nearly a hundred forty years to learn them. Maybe you should get started on that finally, seeing as how you do have some catching up to do." _

Hodgins scratched his beard and nodded to himself, sure _that _was where it all began to go downhill that morning. Hodgins saw Booth do something he'd never seen him do before—send Brennan away from the scene with an FBI tech in tow, as if banishing her from the scene. The agent spent the balance of the morning trying to wrestle control of the scene from the State Police and most of the afternoon trying to mend fences well enough to convince the locals to turn over to the FBI the tagged materials and photographic evidence that they had taken before the FBI arrived on-scene. Phone calls with Caroline and, apparently, Deputy Director Cullen ensued, leaving Booth certifiably fit to be tied. Yet for all the trouble Brennan had caused him, Booth never spoke an ill word of her—in fact, he defended her to the extent he could, even though her behavior, which bordered on unprofessional, well-intentioned though it was, lit off an inter-jurisdictional, interagency pissing contest of epic proportions and caused Booth an unquantifiable amount of grief. But, though no one would have blamed him had he thrown her under the bus a little, he never did. Because that's not the kind of guy Seeley Booth was, and because the loyalty that Booth had for his partner was unswerving and absolute.

Theirs was an unusual connection, Hodgins thought to himself. It was unique, both in the way it was, and in the way that it had developed over the years. It made him think of industrial fasteners and the use of torque formulas to determine the proper bolt tension. To determine the amount of torque that can be applied to a bolt, one needs to know the yield or tensile strength of the bolt material, based on the size and diameter of the bolt as well as the material (e.g. SS 2205). Undertorquing the bolt can result in unnecessary wear on the bolt as well as on the materials or components that are being held together by the bolt; in the long run, a loose or undertorqued bolt will fail. Yet overtorquing a bolt can be equally damaging to the bolt and to the fastened material, because the excessive torque can lead to stress cracking, fracture and/or shearing of the bolt material as a result of excess axial loading (stretching or elongation of the bolt itself) or excessive torsional loading (wear or fracture that occurs where the bolt material contacts the threads or the joined surfaces).

Booth and Brennan were each strong people: strong by nature (like a good alloy), each strengthened by their own life experiences (the way the tensile strength of a metal can be improved by heat-annealing it). They were resilient in ways that Hodgins believed he could only dream of—from a materials science standpoint, they had a very high yield or tensile strength as individuals. But at first, despite their individual strengths, they clashed. They were undertorqued, and all the distance between them led to damaging clashes—one of which fractured their connection and kept them from working together for over a year. But Booth—_the crazy man that he is_, Hodgins said to himself—he found a way to utilize Brennan's services again, and she agreed, but only on the condition that Booth make her a full partner, with full participation in the case. They were bonded together again, and this time, whether it was their personal chemistry, the work they did together, or both—the connection between them tightened, and the space between them narrowed, and it left them stronger, as a partnership, for it.

But now, it seemed something had changed—and which Hodgins believed caused them to be overtorqued. He had an idea of what it was. That personal chemistry, comprised as it was of platonic friendship and an unmistakable sexual magnetism between the two, had drawn them closer—had that chemistry now drawn them so close that they were in danger of being overtorqued? Sometimes disparate materials that are fastened together, under stress or pressure, can actually rub off on one another, creating oxides or other chemical depositions not native to either material. Had Booth and Brennan rubbed off on one another, to the point that they had actually changed one another's underlying chemistry? Hodgins wondered at that, and then grinned at the degree to which he'd taken his metaphor. _Maybe I need another drink, _he thought, glancing over at Booth, who had drained his second Jameson and, while Hodgins wasn't looking, procured himself a third.

Hodgins glanced at his phone as the screen lit up with a text message. _Where ru? _Angela asked. He thumbed back a response and turned to Booth.

"Hey, Booth—Angie's upstairs. I guess there's another bar up there. I'm going to finish my drink and head up." He paused, observing the way Booth seemed to be working his jaw back and forth, as if he were chewing on something. "You're welcome to join us, if you want," he said, wondering if Booth would still be there, three more whiskeys down, by the time he and Angela left. The thought of it made him cringe.

"Yeah, sure," Booth said quietly, draining his third Jameson in a single swallow. "I've got to take a piss, then I'll come up," he said. "I'll see you up there in a minute, okay?"

Hodgins finished the last quarter-ounce of his whiskey, and gestured to the bartender. "Hey, I want to clear my tab."

The bartender arched an eyebrow and jerked his head towards Booth. "The gentleman already took care of it," he said quietly. Booth looked over and shrugged with a sheepish grin.

"It's the least I could do for keeping you all day and being a jerk the whole time," Booth said.

"Thanks," Hodgins said, dropping a five in the bartender's tip jar as he stepped away from the bar. "Yeah," he said. "I'll see you upstairs."

Booth arched his neck to the side and cracked it as he listened to the DJ's next nu-metal selection scream through the club's speakers. _What I wouldn't do for a little Triumph, Journey or even Lynyrd Skynyrd, _he grumbled to himself.

_There was nothing inside  
>The memories left abandoned<br>There was nowhere to hide  
>The ashes fell like snow<br>And the ground caved in  
>Between where we were standing<br>And your voice was all I heard  
>That I get what I deserve<em>

Hodgins watched Booth disappear into the men's room and walked upstairs. He found Angela waiting for him at the top of the stairs and, feeling his stomach flutter at the sight of her, walked quickly to close the distance between them. Their mouths crashed together and they kissed, her hands cupping the side of his bearded face, and they reveled in the taste of each other.

"Hey, babe," he said with a grin as they broke for air.

"Hey, Jack," she said to him with a toothy smile, kissing his lips softly and quickly. "I can still smell the woods on you," she said to him. "I'm guessing it's not your aftershave."

"Well, be glad it's not _eau de decomp," _he laughed. "I took a quick shower in the decon shower at the lab—_shhhh, _don't tell Cam—but I guess I wasn't able to get it all off..."

"It's okay, Jack," she said, stroking his scruffy jaw, eliciting a broad smile from him. She loved his beard. It was so—_Hodgy._ "So, Booth dropped you off?" she asked.

His smile fled at her question. "Um, well," he muttered, hesitatingly. "No, actually, he came with me. He's downstairs in the john." He saw a strange look cross Angela's face. "Is that a problem? He had a really bad day and so he came in for a drink." _Or two, or three._

"Booth's here?" she asked, biting her lip awkwardly as her eyes darted over to the bar. "Oh, shit," she whispered, shaking her head in worry. "Shit, shit, _shit._"

"What?" Hodgins asked, concerned when his normally unflappable girlfriend expressed that kind of concern. "What is it, Angie? What's wrong?" He followed her dark brown eyes as they roamed over to the bar to their left. "Oh, shit," he whispered, his eyes focusing on the spot where Angela was looking, and he felt a sinking feeling in his gut. "This is _not _good," he said grimly as he watched the spectacle in the corner of the bar.

There was Dr. Brennan, clad in tight jeans, a black halter top, an unseen but obviously-there strapless push-up bra more than doing its job, and black three-inch heels, leaning against the bar with a shot glass between her breasts, as a man—whose face Hodgins couldn't see fully from his vantage point—sensuously licked salt off her left shoulder with the point of his tongue. With his hands crossed behind his back, the man then leaned his face down to her chest to take the shot. As he brought his head up, the shot glass between his lips, he brought his hand up, slammed the glass on the bar as he leaned in to retrieve with his mouth the slice of lime that Brennan held between her teeth.

Booth put his hand on Hodgins' shoulder and smiled at Angela. "Hey, Hodgins, Ange—" He followed their gaze to the bar and stared, his mouth hanging open for the several seconds it took his whiskey-dampened mind to process what he saw. _Oh, no, she's not— _ His jaw tightened and closed firmly as his soft brown eyes darkened with rage. _What the fuck is she doing here…and what the fuck is she doing over there with that fucking loser?_

"Booth—" Hodgins said helplessly.

"Just a second, huh?" Booth muttered. "I'll be right back."

"Not good," Hodgins said, as his friend waved him off angrily and walked directly over to the bar, making a clear beeline for where Brennan stood.

"Oh, shit," Angela said again. "Oh, Jesus."

"You're about to see Hurricane Booth make landfall," Hodgins observed. "Category Five," he added drily.

Booth could not believe his eyes. _What the fuck, Bones. _She had just let this man—whoever he was—lick salt off her creamy white shoulder, shove his face between her breasts to grab a shot glass with his mouth, and then put his mouth on hers to—

It was more than he could bear. The music from the PA faded from his mind because all he could hear was the roar of blood in his ears as his heart pounded in his chest. _What the fuck—_those creamy, shapely shoulders_, _those amazing, perfectly-shaped breasts, those plump, soft lips—they were his, _his _to claim. _His. _The sight of another man putting his mouth on _her, _it was too much. He walked up to her and grabbed her arm just above the elbow, his large hand encircling her flesh so that the tips of his thumb and middle finger touched. _So graceful, so elegant, so exquisite—those arms, that skin. _His stomach tightened at the thought of another man touching the silky skin of her arm. _His._

"Booth!" she hissed, twisting in his grasp but did not flinching at his touch.

The music continued to roar over the club's speaker system, despite the drama unfolding between Booth, Brennan, and a random guy named Rick at Gleam's upper bar.

_While those around him criticize and sleep  
>And through a fractal on that breaking wall<br>I see you my friend and touch your face again  
>Miracles will happen as we trip<br>But we're never gonna survive unless  
>We get a little crazy<br>No we're never gonna survive unless  
>We are a little<br>Cray cray crazy_

"What the _fuck _are you doing, Bones?" he growled, nearly spitting the word _fuck _as he tightened his hold on her arm.

Brennan's pale eyes blazed as they darted back and forth from between where Booth had latched onto her arm and where Booth's own dark eyes drilled intently into hers. Deciding not to give him the satisfaction of letting him know his actions had caused her physical discomfort and emotional anger, Brennan stifled her impulse to respond in kind physically to Booth's gesture. Instead, she decided to counter his primate-like behavior with reason and a rational explanation.

"It's called a body shot, Booth," she replied. "If you need an explanation, I would suggest you go ask Angela. She's over there on that side of the bar somewhere and can fill you in on the details because I'm busy—"

The man standing next to her spat the lime onto the bar and turned to Booth angrily. "You got a problem, pal?"

Her head snapping in the direction of her latest social experiment, Brennan immediately barked at Rick, the vicious snarl of warning clear in her voice. "Stay out of this."

However, Brennan's terse warnings went unheeded as Booth released her arm, and stepped towards the man. Despite the fact that Rick was several inches shorter than Booth, what he lacked in height, he more than made up for in a condescending scowl as he thrust out his well-muscled shoulders.

"I'm serious," Brennan said, suddenly feeling excluded as the two men moved towards each other. "You have something to say, Booth—then you say it to me." Booth barely glanced at Brennan and remained oblivious to her words.

"I'm not joking," Brennan said, turning to Rick, when she realized Booth was ignoring her. "This has nothing to do with you—"

Waving her off, his eyes still on Booth, Rick said, "Don't worry Temperance, I'll handle this."

"No—"

But, just as quickly as Booth had dismissed her, so too now had Rick.

Booth felt his muscles tense like a tightly drawn bow as he stood toe to toe with the other man, who he outweighed by at least twenty pounds and over whom he towered by three or four inches. Booth glared at him, his hot breath radiating off the other man's wide forehead, his racing heartbeat pulsing at his temples.

"Yeah, I got a problem," he said. "And, if you don't get the fuck outta here, you're gonna have a problem, too."

Feeling a raging amount of frustration well up in her and begin to boil over, Brennan once again tried to reinsert herself into the male standoff.

"What the hell? You're completely out of line, Booth," she said, extending her arm between the two men as she tried to push Booth away.

"Shut up, Bones," he hissed, his eyes never leaving his adversary's. He grinned at the other man, his lip curled in barely-contained rage. "It's time for you to go."

"Oh, yeah—really?" Rick said, staring at the dark, well-built man in front of him who apparently knew Temperance. "And what are you gonna do about it?"

Booth laughed, leaning in even closer to the other man. "I'm gonna make you wish you were never born. So I highly recommend you get the fuck outta here, you little cocksucker, pronto, before I—"

"Before you what, you arrogant prick?"

Booth laughed again, more grimly this time, as he clenched and unclenched his fists, which he kept shoved in his pockets in an attempt to preserve some modicum of self-control. "Before I turn that pretty little cocksucking face of yours into an unrecognizable pile of human hamburger."

"You think you can scare me, asshole?"

"I _know _I scare you," Booth sneered, tilting his head to one side as he awaited the shorter, stockier man's reaction.

For several long moments, there was silence between them, and it was clear that Booth was right.

"I don't know who you think you are, but if you—"

"I'm a combat-decorated, airborne-qualified sniper with more verified kills than you have notches in your bedpost," Booth said evenly, lifting his chin with a smirk as he looked down at the other man. "How 'bout them apples, huh?"he said, recalling the line by Jack Nicholson's character in _Chinatown. _

"Oh—and I spend my days putting murderers, kidnappers, rapists, mobsters and serial killers behind bars. So if you think you can intimidate me, you miserable little prick, then you're making a big mistake."

Booth turned to the bartender—who had been watching the trio, transfixed by the drama—with a gesture towards the bar and a quick tap of his wrist on the wood. "Hey, how about two more here?"

Jerry the bartender spared one quick look at Brennan, who noticed his glance and glared in annoyance that the bartender was responding to Booth's signal, instead of hers—despite the fact that _she_ was the one who had been giving him substantial tips all night. Quickly conjuring two shots out of thin air, the bartender obediently and with visible trepidation placed them in front of Booth.

Turning to where Rick still stood glaring at Booth in visible anger, Booth, somewhat nonchalant and dismissive, suddenly took one of the shots and slid it in Rick's direction. "Just so that there's no hard feelings since I know you're only trying to do what any red-blooded American guy would in a place like this by getting laid—_here_." Booth saw a flicker of confusion and hesitation in Rick's eyes. "You just had the bad luck to pick the wrong woman, so how about you have one on me?"

"Are you for real?" Rick sputtered.

"Sure," Booth said. "Go ahead. Take it."

"Un-fucking-believable," Rick said. Throwing a look at Brennan, he said, "Like I said earlier Temperance, you're hot. But, I seriously do not need this shit. I don't like being mind-fucked."

"So why are you still here?" Booth asked, smirking as he remembered Caroline Julian saying that as she summarily dismissed him after agreeing to get him a warrant to search Judge Hasty's car a few years back. He cocked his head and waited for Rick to answer, and watched the man's will fray under Booth's withering stare. Rick shifted his weight from one foot to the other, as if considering his next move. He narrowed his eyes and glanced over to Brennan, whose pale eyes burned with an emotion he could not read.

Rick swallowed and shook his head, arching his eyebrow in a silent parting comment to Brennan, and walked away muttering, "I'm outta here."

Booth's glance passed from the two brimming shot glasses in front of him to Brennan's cell phone that lay on the bar next to the half-dozen empty martini glasses in front of her. He reached over and pulled the phone to him and began spinning it on the smooth, lacquered wood of the bar.

"Hey!" she said, reaching over to retrieve it. "Give me that!"

With a laugh, he slid the phone farther from her, guarding it with his large, veiny hand. "Don't think so, Bones," he said grimly. "What—you want to call up your new boy-toy to set up your next date?" he sneered. "Did he give you his number, huh?"

"Give me my phone, Booth," Brennan said, the anger rising as her voice stepped up a half-octave.

"Only if you say 'please'," he growled teasingly. "And, only if you ask _nicely_."

"Why should I have to grovel and beg obsequiously to induce you to give me back my own rightful property?" she asked.

"Because you want it back." Booth rolled his eyes. "Nah, I don't think he gave you his number," Booth said. "He was going to bang and bolt, anyway, right?" He narrowed his eyes and saw the confused look in her eyes that he'd seen a hundred times before.

"I don't know what that means," Brennan said through clenched teeth. "But, I take your general meaning, and—"

"Did you give him _yours_?" he hissed.

"My what?" she asked blankly. _What the fuck? Who in the hell does Booth think he is? He doesn't know me, and even if he does, whoever I want to have sex with is my business, not his. And, I didn't even want to sleep with Rick. Fuck!_

"Your phone number, Bones," he said, incredulous that someone so brilliant could be so dense. "Did you give it to him, huh?"

He moved in closer to her, close enough that she could feel his breath and smell the whiskey on it. Brennan could smell _him, _that smell that she knew after all these years was the smell of him alone—that unique mixture of sandalwood aftershave, musky sweat and Old Spice deodorant. For a moment, fractions of a second, that smell disarmed her. She shifted her weight and took a small step backward, trying to regain her personal space and control of her own olfactory senses, and before she realized what had happened, Brennan knew he had done it again. He had taken her barstool. For a moment, she wasn't even sure how it had happened.

"Hey!" she growled, pushing him away but realizing he had braced himself against her assault. With one leg planted firmly on the ground and the other firmly on the footrest, he was immovable. "That's _my _seat!"

"Seeing as how my ass is currently occupying it, I'd say you're wrong on that one, Bones, and that it's my seat now," Booth said. "But, you can sit in that one next to me if you're nice."

Brennan stared at Booth. She wasn't sure which of his numerous insufferable and presumptuous acts caused her greater anger. Initially, Brennan thought his interruption of her experiment with Rick and subsequent dismissal of her partner in dialogue merited the greatest insult. However, his continued arrogance in telling Temperance Brennan not only about _herself_ but attempting to dictate her behavior really, really pissed her off. From Booth's refusal to return _her_ cell phone to her unless she complied with his ludicrous demand that she obsequiously request for him to give it back, to his appropriation of _her_ bar stool—cumulatively, it left Brennan in a quandary as to which was his most infuriating act. Deciding a blanket reprisal would serve best, Brennan looked at Booth, and pointed at the shot that Rick had left on the bar before his quick retreat when she stepped in and told him to get lost.

"You know what, Booth? That's fine. You want to appropriate my bar stool to make yourself feel better, more manly? Fine. But, just so you know, your attempts to display costly signaling behavior, in an effort to convey your social dominance and status are a complete waste of both your efforts and my time," Brennan retorted.

"My _what_ behavior?" Booth responded. "_Costly signaling_? What the hell is that Bones? It sounds like what you get when you drive through a po-dunk town and get a ticket for going three miles over the speed limit and not using your blinkers. You know, the kind of ticket that runs $312 a pop, and you can only pay in person at the Po-dunk County Courthouse on alternate Tuesdays between the hours of two and four." Booth smiled, amused at his comment even if Brennan wasn't.

"Costly signaling," Brennan said. "It's a sub-theory in the field of evolutionary biology. It assumes that males, when in a communal setting and vying for dominance, act in a certain way to let females with whom they wish to copulate in an attempt to biologically reproduce know that they are the most worthy candidates for the task. Buying Rick a drink there, demonstrating your altruistic behavior because you wanted me to think you feel confident enough in my choice of you over him that you no longer feel threatened by him? Costly signaling. Only problem with that is, since I'm the female, _I_ get to chose how to interpret the signal. And, you know what? I'm not falling for it. Now, either get off of my damn stool, give me back my goddamn phone, or we're going to have a problem here. And, unlike Rick, I'm not going to let you intimidate me. I'm not backing down on this. Now, comply."

"_Comply_?" Booth snorted. "What the fuck do you think I am? Lassie? I'm not going to give you your goddamn phone back, Bones, until you come clean," he said.

"I bathed before I got here," she said. "I'm relatively clean, aside from whatever perspiration I might have—"

"I thought you said the bar stool isn't a big deal," Booth interrupted her.

"It's not," Brennan said too quickly, immediately realizing that Booth had tripped her up. _Fuck. I shouldn't have had that last margarita. Fuck!_

"No, Bones," he smirked, seeing her mentally war with herself, a battle that was playing out behind the dilated pupils of her eyes as the buzz washed over her. "I'm hanging on to your precious cell phone and staying put in this very comfortable seat—which I happen to like quite a lot because it's got a great view of everything up here, by the way—until you tell me _why._"

"Why what?" she growled.

"Why you did something so stupid and irrational as to let that—that _loser_—touch you like that."

"Why do you care?" she asked. "It's none of your concern, Booth."

"Were you going to go home and fuck him?" Booth asked, leaning towards her as he slipped her phone into his pocket, ignoring her demand for its return. "Huh? Were you going to let him take you home?"

"Not that it's any concern of yours, but I was conducting an experiment," she said. _Why am I even dignifying his questions with a response?_ Brennan wondered as she began to metaphorically kick herself. _I don't owe him any explanations. None. Not at all._

"An experiment?" he spat. "What kind of fucking experiment, Bones, huh?" His brown eyes had long since blackened with rage. "Maybe it _was _a 'fucking experiment.' Is that what it was, Bones? Is that why you let that faggy little prick put his nasty little mouth on you? Huh?" He swallowed hard, trying to keep his rage in check. "Did you want to see if he'd take you home and fuck you?"

"I don't owe you any goddamn explanation, Booth—"

"Are you telling me you're so damn drunk, Bones—so thoroughly pissed out of your mind—that you don't _know_ what you wanted him to do?" he asked, his voice loud with indignation and emboldened by the three fine whiskeys he drank downstairs. "Or, are you saying you've been sober the whole time, in which case you intentionally—"

She cut him off. "I know exactly what I am doing, Booth." _Why am I explaining myself to him? _she asked herself again. _Enough. For fuck's sake, Brennan, have a little self-respect. _"I don't get drunk—you know that. I hold my liquor very well."

Booth reached for one of the shots, brought it to his lips with a devilish grin and threw his head back as he felt the Cuervo burn all the way down. He remembered doing Cuervo shots with her in his old pool bar—the one he hadn't been to in years—and how he had almost taken her home with him that night three-odd years ago. _"We are not spending the night together," she'd said. "Of course we are," he'd replied, then realized she was rejecting him. "Why?" He remembered her answer and the smile on her lips when she'd given it: "Tequila."_

"I know you hold your liquor well, Bones," he said, ignoring her protest. "That's why I don't understand what the hell you think you were doing." He narrowed his eyes and stared at her, his irises as black and hard as volcanic glass.

"You can't possibly be so sexually frustrated that you thought you needed to come here, let some preppy douchebag slobber all over you so you could get a good fuck." He smirked and shook his head.

For a moment, her glance dropped from his face to his chest, the upper portion of which—his prominent _pectoralis major _muscles—was readily visible in the opening left at the top of his shirt by his having unbuttoned the top two buttons.

"Like, you think some guy like that was your only option?" he asked. "Huh?"

Her eyes snapped back to his face to find his eyes drilling into her. "Nah, I don't think so." He paused, glancing back in the direction of the stairs down which pretty-boy Rick had disappeared. His eyes briefly met Angela's and Hodgins', then he turned back to Brennan. "Nah—you can't be that desperate. Yeah—you're drunk. Because no way you'd let an effeminate slimeball like that touch you if you were stone cold sober."

Then he said it.

"You're not _that_ hard-up," he said. Just like the Maryland State Police crime scene tech had said. For a moment, self-doubt flashed through her. _Am I? _She took a deep breath and bit her lip. _No—absolutely not. No! _How dare he make her question herself like that. _Asshole!_

"Are you quite finished, Booth?" she asked, her voice dripping with as much condescension as she could muster. "Your arrogance is truly a spectacle to behold. I know members of royal families that have been in power for centuries and met military dictators holding to power in their countries by grace of their soldiers alone, and none of them are as insufferable as you."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes. Shall I explain?"

"Please," Booth said, the joviality in his voice tinged with sarcasm. "_This_ I gotta hear."

"First, because you seem to actually think I owe you some kind of explanation for my actions, which I most certainly do not. Secondly, because you think you can just bully me into getting what you want—the same way you always have, using your physical strength, your personality and your gun to intimidate people. And thirdly—well…" She smiled wickedly.

"What?"

Brennan laughed.

"What?" he asked again, his voice now even louder and sharper than it had been before.

"You think _I _want to have intercourse with _you," _Brennan said.

It was Booth's turn to laugh at her.

"You know, Bones," he said, his lips curled into a sneer. "After all these years, I still can't figure out how you think."

"Of course not," she said."Because I'm a genius, and you, most clearly, are not."

He ignored the insult. "No, that's not why," he said. "It's because you're so clueless, it's mindboggling. Bones, you bring cluelessness to previously unattainable heights." He shook his head and leaned in even closer to her. "If I ever thought that you wanted to fuck me," he said, his voice low and husky. "I'd have taken you home with me years ago, and I'd have fucked your brains out long before now."

Her hands on her hips in a classic defensive posture, Brennan narrowed her eyes at Booth's confession.

_Since when does Booth admit anything having to do with anything about sex…and anything about sex and me? What an asshole…he's playing with me. He has to be. _Determined to find out, Brennan tilted her head at Booth and said, "Oh, really? _You_ want to fuck _me_?"

Booth snorted, ignoring her direct question. "And, once I'd gotten done with you—you'd never give limp-dick boy-toys like that douchewad the time of goddamn day much less the opportunity to slather their dirty mouths all over you."

"I doubt it," she said, struggling to maintain her bravado and fumbling for something to distract him from her obvious surprise. _He's not joking. What the fuck? Booth isn't joking_. "I highly doubt it."

"What?" he blurted out, not expecting that response.

"I doubt you're as incredible, accomplished, and satisfying a sexual partner as you think you are," Brennan said, relishing in the opportunity to assault his sense of masculinity so directly when she witnessed Booth's reaction to her words.

"You're saying I'm _not _good in bed?"

Her own surprise momentarily forgotten, Brennan pressed forward.

"That's precisely what I'm saying, Booth. But, if you want me to be more specific, then I will. I have serious doubts that you have any notable capabilities or talents to make any woman who was dumb and unlucky enough to stumble into your bed to leave it with her needs fulfilled. I'm fairly certain you can't get the job done. Is that plain enough for you?"

Booth sat there on the bar stool, stunned. He felt the blood roaring in his ears again, and sensed a dozen eyes watching him, listening to their conversation. Part of him recoiled at the notion of having this kind of a conversation in public, but another part of him—the part of him unfettered and emboldened by three generously-sized glasses of Jameson and a shot of Cuervo Gold—was just so pissed at Brennan that he didn't care who heard what they said.

He licked his lips and leaned in close, his lips just inches from her ear as he pointed his finger in her face. "You haven't been fucked until you've been fucked by me," he said, trying to ignore the tugging sensation below his navel. Just thinking about fucking her made him hard. He tried to will his erection away, refusing to let her see how much he wanted her. He put his hand on his hip, grinned his most charming, toothiest grin and whispered, "I'd ruin you for any other man."

"Unlikely," she said, reaching for the tequila shot—the one Booth had bought for Rick—that languished on the bar. She threw back the shot and, without so much as the slightest grunt or hiss to acknowledge the burn she felt as it went down, slammed the shot glass onto the bar. "I think you're too prudish and restrained to give me what I really want," she said. "Let alone what I really need."

"You think so?" he growled. "You don't think I'd fuck you hard enough to make you come?" he whispered in her ear. "Or, that I wouldn't fuck you creatively enough to make you come? I could make you come in ways you've never imagined, harder than you ever thought possible."

"You have no factual basis for that proposition," Brennan said drily. "I have no reason to believe you can give me what I want—except for my phone, which I insist you return to me forthwith."

"Ha!" Booth spat. "After insulting my manhood and my skills in bed, you want me to give you your phone back?" His near-black eyes narrowed into slits. "You know what? This is bullshit. Pure, unadulterated bullshit."

"I want my phone back, Booth." Her pale eyes flashed with anger. "_Now._"

"This isn't about your phone, is it?" he asked in a rhetorical tone. "Nah, Bones—I know what this is about." He laughed darkly. "I think the lady doth protest too much. I think you're afraid, not that I couldn't satisfy you, but that you couldn't satisfy _me. _ You're afraid that what you said that night, sitting in that cab while I stood in the rain, was a _lie_. Hmm? Do you remember what you said? Huh?"

She remembered. She remembered all too well. Every. Damn. Word.

_"So you're afraid when I look at you in the morning, I'll have regrets?" he'd asked._

_She had laughed at his question. "That would never happen," she had replied with a wry grin as the taxi pulled away from the curb, leaving him standing in the middle of the street in the drizzling rain as she waved at him out the rear window of the cab. _

Booth reached into his back pocket, pulled out his wallet and tossed a crisp twenty-dollar bill on the bar.

"I think you're afraid I _would_ have regrets. That if you went home with me tonight, that I'd have regrets."

He let the words sink in. He wanted to see her squirm.

Brennan stared at him, not able to comprehend how he could bring up _that _night of all nights, the one of which they hadn't spoken in years. _He did not just do that. Booth, seriously. You did not just do that. _But, he did, and, not only that, he kept at it.

"And, you know what? Maybe you're right. I probably would." Booth shook his head and laughed softly to himself as he shoved his wallet back into his pocket. "But, you know, Bones—I'll tell you what I _do_ regret: I regret not leaving this bar an hour ago. This conversation, and this lovely little evening of ours, is _over._ Finished. It's done. And I'm outta here."

And, with that, he slid off the bar stool and walked away.

Brennan watched him walk past Angela and Hodgins—who stood ten feet away, their mouths gaping open in shock—without so much as a backward glance. Booth paused at the top of the stairs, yielding the right of way to a couple of tipsy college-aged girls who had somehow managed to wobble their way up the stairs. He glanced back at her, his brown eyes burning back as coal, then turned away again. Brennan heard a grunt and saw him punch the wall above the banister, then proceed down the stairs. When he disappeared around the turn in the stairs, her eyes met Angela's.

_What just happened? _she wondered, still trying to process the entire conversation and realizing that she was failing miserably. She needed another drink, signaling to Jerry for another shot of tequila. Definitely. Another drink.

* * *

><p><em>Still with us? <em>

_If so, (1) please, **please **leave a review and tell us what you think, and  
>(2) if you haven<em>_'t already, add this bad boy to your story alerts so you__'ll know when we post the next chapter._

_But please, whatever you do, please leave us a review._  
><em><strong>Lesera128<strong> and I are on pins and needles wondering what you people think of this crazy fic of ours._


	3. Preload Tension and Overtorque

Title: **Costly Signals  
><strong>By:** Lesera128 and dharmamonkey**  
>Rated: <strong>M<strong>

**Disclaimer: **_Hart Hanson owns _Bones_—alas. (But he's never taken these characters where we have. That's why you love fanfic.)  
><em>

_**A/N: ** **Okay, everybody_—_what I'm going to say is really, REALLY important, so listen up.** Chapter 3 is the last chapter in Part One. The second half of the tale (cleverly entitled "**Costly Signals: Part Two**") picks up with Chapter 4, and will be posted by my co-writer, the amazing **Lesera128.** So, if you want to be alerted when **Costly Signals: Part Two** and its chapters get posted, you'll need make sure you've added her to your Author Alerts. _(Darn FFN won't let me post a link to her profile, but if you click on the reviews_, _hers is the very first one.) __

_Of course, you don't want to miss Part Two, because__—__well, just because. Because it's going to be awesome, and because you already know we're gonna leave you with a painful cliffhanger at the end of this wee chapter here. So take care of that author alert thing lest you miss the climax (_ahem_) and dramatic ending to this yarn of ours. _

_And thanks to everyone who has left us a review for Chapters 1 and 2. Lesera128 and I weren't sure what kind of response we'd get to this crazy little fic of ours, and we've been absolutely knocked sideways by the overwhelmingly positive reaction we've received from the Bones FF-verse. So thanks to you all. Your reviews keep us writing, and almost certainly ensures that this crazy fic of ours will get a sequel._

* * *

><p><strong>CHAPTER 3 – Preload Tension and Overtorque<strong>

Hodgins pulled away from the balcony railing after watching Booth stalk out of the club. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, trying to clear his mind of the scene he had just witnessed.

"That was bizarre," he said to his girlfriend, rubbing his eyes. It had been a long day of unprecedented weirdness: Brennan's major meltdown at the crime scene; Booth sending her packing, dead body in tow, just to get her and her mouth out of his way; Booth's sullen mood, and the way the agent had inhaled three glasses of Jameson Gold Reserve, and the surreal verbal duel they'd just watched which, from Hodgins' standpoint, looked like it left no winner, only two grievously wounded, humiliated participants. "Very weird."

"Yeah," Angela replied, still too stunned to articulate a response to what they'd seen.

"Remember that nature show we watched on Animal Planet the other night?" he asked her. "You know, the one for Big Cats Week about the lions of the Serengeti?"

Angela cocked her eyebrow. "Sure, I remember."

"Remember how it talked about the mating ritual where the male and female lion are observed to snarl and paw at each other before she submits, assumes the position and lets him mount her? I feel like we just watched one of those kinds of mating ritual displays."

"God, Hodgins." she laughed. "I also remember something about the lion and lioness going at it every fifteen or twenty minutes for three or four days straight."

"Yeah, that too," he said, clearing his throat. He grinned. "I have to confess, Angie. Watching Booth browbeat that other guy into submission, chasing him away and then the two of them going at it, arguing like that—well, _um,_ I feel a little embarrassed to admit it, but, that was really hot." He cleared his throat again and adjusted his waistband, because all of a sudden he felt a little, _well_, awkward.

Angela flashed her eyebrows and smiled. "Me, too," she admitted. Dropping her voice to a whisper, she said, "I'm really turned on, watching that whole thing. It was like, instead of flashing his badge or his gun, he flashed his blazing masculinity and blew that other numbnut out of the water."

Hodgins glanced over at Brennan. "I think we should go," he said in a husky voice. Angela nodded with a sexy smirk.

"Yeah, we should," she said. "I'm feeling a little, _ah—_well, uncomfortable." She winked, making his ears blush as red as his beard. "Give me one minute, and we can go."

She handed her empty glass to Hodgins and walked over to Brennan.

"Sweetie…"

"I don't want to hear it, Angela," Brennan said in a warning tone.

"Listen, sweetie," Angela said. "You are a genius, but that was just about the stupidest thing I think I've ever seen." She paused and thought for a moment. "One of the hottest things I've ever seen, but mostly, one of the stupidest things I've ever seen. And, without a doubt, the stupidest thing I've ever seen _you _do, Bren, my bestest brainiac friend."

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Angela."

"Sure you don't," Angela said, rolling her eyes. "You let Booth just walk out of here. I don't understand—"

"His behavior was absolutely and completely totally unacceptable and insufferable," Brennan said. "First, he rudely interrupts the body shots I was enjoying with Rick, who was pleasant and friendly enough—even if he did try too hard to raise himself in my esteem. Then, Booth engages in a ludicrous display of alpha male dominance and, through use of physical intimidation and verbal threats, he asserts his dominance over—"

Angela scowled and couldn't help herself as she interrupted her best friend's tirade. "Brennan, I really don't want to hear all of your anthropological bullshit rationalizations right now. Are you telling me you're pissed that Booth came in and rescued you from that loser you were doing body shots with?"

"Whose side are you on, Angela?" Brennan asks.

"It's not about sides, Brennan. It's about common goddamn sense. You picked a random goober in a bar over your partner of two and a half years—your strong, funny, smart, brave, sex-on-a-stick knight in FBI standard issue body armor?"

"Because you told me to!" Brennan countered. "Remember? You're the one who had this whole idea to begin with, Angela. You were even the one who picked out Rick, and then left me by myself so I could talk to him. I didn't even want to come out tonight, Ange. All I wanted to do was finish at the lab, and go home. But, _no._ You're the one who made me come here, you're the one who made me drink, and you're the reason Booth was here, and all then all this stupid, stupid shit happened. And, now, I don't have my cell phone, and, none of it's my fault—it's all yours."

Shaking off Brennan's angry tirade, Angela said, "You know what? That's not the important point here. The important point here is I think you've finally cracked."

"Cracked what?"

"Are you insane?" Angela stared at her friend. "You know what? I think you are. I think you've gone and lost it and are finally absolutely, certifiably insane. Maybe we need to declare a Queen of the Loony Bin."

"I don't believe in psychology or in any of the diagnostic—"

"Brennan, you have no idea what you just let walk down those stairs, do you?"

"I don't understand what you're talking about, Angela."

"Sweetie, he wants you. You want him. You're perfect for each other."

"I don't think so," Brennan grumbled, unwilling to admit that there might be a single shred of truth in Angela's words. _I would never let myself be dominated by an arrogant, egotistical, selfish, base, animalistic hominid like Booth. Never. _"Booth is the last person I want right now."

"You're lying, Bren. Hodgins and I just spent the past fifteen minutes watching you two eye-fuck each other senseless in some of the best foreplay that I usually would have to pay to see. Now, sweetie, will you please, for the love of God, stop being so stubborn?"

"I'm not being stubborn—"

"Like hell you aren't, Brennan. Now, if I were you, I'd say you better go buy a ticket on that ride, and you better do it pretty damn quick, before somebody else buys the last seat."

"I don't understand what that means," Brennan said.

"Yes, you do, but just so that there's no misunderstanding here, it means that you should go after him," Angela explained, her voice tinged with frustration at her friend's blindness to the obvious reality in front of her. "Pull your head out of your proverbial ass and go to him. Got _get _him."

"What you're saying makes no sense."

"You know what?" Angela closed her eyes and shook her head. "Whatever. You're hopeless. Goddamn hopeless, Brennan."

Brennan watched in stunned disbelief as Angela turned smartly on her three-inch heels, shot Brennan a very knowing look, and walked in the direction in which Hodgins had disappeared a few minutes earlier.

"Seriously, Ange?" Brennan called after her.

The only response Brennan received was the back of Angela Montenegro's head disappearing further off in the distance.

"Unbelievable," Brennan muttered. "I can't believe she left me. So much for a girl's night out."

_And all because she wants to get laid_, Brennan thought with both envy and annoyance. Shaking her head, she added, "Traitor."

* * *

><p><em>What just happened? <em>Booth asked himself as he stood on the sidewalk in front of the nightclub waiting for the valet to retrieve his SUV.

He glanced down at his throbbing hand and saw the half-inch gash across his second knuckle, right below his middle finger, and watched the blood ooze from the split in the skin when he clenched his fist. He'd busted his knuckles before, but usually had something better to show for it, like winning that bare-knuckle boxing match in Vegas during the second year of his partnership with Bones, or at least laying some obnoxious club hockey player on the ice with a bloody nose after a fight during one of his Fed-Cases games. But this busted knuckle left him feeling distinctly empty.

He tipped the valet generously—mostly because his brain felt so muddled by the whiskey and that tequila shot and moreover, by what had just happened with Bones, that he couldn't think straight enough to figure how much change he should've gotten for his twenty dollar bill.

He climbed into the driver's seat and, glancing into the rear view mirror, realized as he struggled to focus his eyes that the street lights and traffic signals seemed particularly hazy-looking. This struck him as odd, because it was actually a fairly dry, pleasant spring evening, so there wasn't much humidity in the air. Then the reality of it sunk in: he was drunk, which is something he tried to avoid being, generally, but especially while behind the wheel of his FBI-issued Tahoe. He realized he was just a couple of blocks from the Hoover, which made him wonder if he would be fired if he got tagged for a DUI while driving his FBI-issued vehicle home from a nightclub. _Ten minutes, _he reminded himself. It's just a ten minute drive—probably less, this time of night—between the nightclub and his apartment. He could hold it together for ten minutes, right? He pulled out into the street and chuckled as he saw the sign for the National Museum for Crime & Punishment. His mind was swirling with thoughts and he needed to focus. He needed something to distract his thoughts long enough to get his drunk ass home, with his ass and the SUV each in one piece.

He reached over to turn on the radio, which was tuned to the local station that played music from the 70s, 80s and 90s. That would do for now.

_You can look at the menu  
>but you just can't eat<br>You can feel the cushion  
>but you can't have a seat<br>You can dip your foot in the pool  
>but you can't have a swim<br>You can feel the punishment  
>but you can't commit the sin<em>

"Aw, _fuck_," he hissed at the radio. As if it wasn't enough to get a tongue-lashing dressing-down from Bones in front of everyone at that club—most of all Angela and Hodgins—now the goddamn radio was mocking him.

_And you want her  
>And she wants you<br>We want everyone  
>And you want her<br>And she wants you  
>No one, no one<br>No one ever is to blame_

He tried to retrace the steps of how he got from bed that morning—a sunny, pleasant enough morning—to where he was now, drunk and yet suffering from the worst buzzkill he'd ever known. Bones had gone completely ballistic on the MSP team at the crime scene, worse than he could remember her being, and he didn't really understand it, because they had both seen crime scenes botched way worse than the Maryland idiots had today. Booth was no scientist but his gut and his experience led him to believe that the crime scene evidence was still salvageable. It might have taken more effort on the Jeffersonian's part, but they were paid consultants, so what the hell difference did it make to them if it took three days to sort through something that should have, given proper on-scene processing, taken only two? Bones had gone totally apeshit and really laid into that idiot from the State Police, the one with the laughably lame porn star name—Toby Waldsachs—and, while Booth would have denied it at the time, for all the trouble it caused him later, there was something undeniably hot about her assertiveness, her bold confidence, and the way she didn't suffer fools. A part of him found it really hot, and it affected him the same way it did when he watched her slug that smarmy federal judge, Hasty, on that very first case they worked together. _Fuck_.

How could it all have gotten so fucked up in such a short time? Sure—he'd had a bad day, a really bad day, and he'd been a real dick to Hodgins, being all snippy and rude to him despite the fact that the bug guy had actually been a real trooper, quietly going about his business, collecting the evidence as best he could despite the interagency, interjurisdictional pissing contest that was raging around him. Booth had gone into the club for a couple of drinks, which became three, and then he'd made the mistake of going upstairs. Why hadn't Hodgins told him Bones was there? Booth wasn't sure if Hodgins had even known; paranoid, conspiracy nut bug-boy normally wasn't subtle and secretive that way. Angela? Well, she has been trying to get him and Bones into bed together for a couple of years—but when Booth got upstairs, it was clear that Angela was a little surprised to see him. Was that whole stunt with the body shots Angela's idea? Booth shook his already-pounding head. Even if she'd given Bones the idea, nobody makes Bones do anything that Bones doesn't want to do.

_Ugh. _The whole thing was giving him a headache. It didn't make sense. Bones was beautiful: absolutely, positively, unbelievably goddamn gorgeous. Why on God's green earth would she possibly think she had to go to a nasty-ass nightclub like that to—how would she say it?—satisfy her biological urges?

He pulled onto his street and wondered at the _deja vu_ feeling of it all. Hadn't they had this conversation already, way back when? When was it?_ Oh yes, _he remembered. It was early last year, after he had gotten together for the third or fourth time with Rebecca—a _huge_ mistake—and she had basically busted him after calling his phone and Rebecca answering it in an obviously post-orgasmically husky tone of voice.

_"It was a textbook example of just how helpless we higher primates can be to our biological urges," she had said to him about what she called his "behavior."_

_"I am not helpless." _Yeah, right.

_"And if you're not helpless, then why did you sleep with her?" _

_"Oh, I really don't recall saying that I did." _

_"You didn't have to. I could hear it in your voice. I might as well as walked in on you having sex." _

They had been working on the case with the bigamist guy with the brittle bone disease. _(Note to self: if you are going to be a bigamist, you might think twice if you carry a rare genetic disease that makes it really easy to trace your steps, sexually, as you leave brittle-boned kids in your wake.)_

It didn't make sense why she would think she had to stoop to the level of picking up guys at bars to satisfy her biological urges. _What about me? _he asked, a lump forming in his throat at the thought of how thoroughly she had rejected him tonight. At least back then, she had at least insinuated that she found him desirable. She'd basically said as much. _Right? _That night, in her office:

_"You know what, Bones?" he had said to her. "It might be all anthropology to you, but there are certain people that you just can't sleep with. I mean, you can pretend that it's just sex. You can lie to yourself, and you can say that it's all good. But, um, there's just—there's too many strings and—and too much at stake, you know? Too much to lose."_

_"Yeah. I can see that," she had said. _

_"It's over, you know?" He had been referring to Rebecca, of course. "I'd appreciate, you know, your support in that."_

_"I will. And if you should slip, I will…keep my mouth shut about it."_

_"Thank you. But, I mean, it's not like I'm gonna—"_

_"No, I mean with anybody. I'm sure Rebecca's not your only option for satisfying your biological urges."_

He remembered the look in her eyes that night. She had never said as much, but she might as well have, the way she looked at him when she referred to him having other options for satisfying his biological urges. He had never taken her up on her unspoken offer, nor had she ever made such an obvious overture since, but he had never stopped thinking about it. Every time he touched her, every time he leaned in close and could smell the coconut and ginger scent of her shampoo in her hair, every time he watched her punch or kick a man who dared attempt to violate her physical boundaries or harm her, every time he listened to her give a dressing-down to someone foolish enough to challenge her brains or her expertise—he found it all so thrilling, so sexy, so arousing, he'd have to go home and rub one out in the shower before he could fall asleep that night. And the longer they worked together, the more that seemed to happen, and the more obvious it was that he wanted her.

But, she never gave him, after that night in her office, any real indication that she was interested. So he smoldered for her, quietly and without ever giving words to the way he felt for her. She didn't know. She really was clueless, wasn't she? She had no idea how badly he wanted her, how nearly every sexy dream he had dreamt over the last three and a half years had been about _her. _And tonight, when he told her, "If I ever thought that you wanted to fuck me, I'd have taken you home with me years ago, and I'd have fucked your brains out a long before now"—well, the secret was out, wasn't it? Had his admission, whiskey-sodden though it was, scared her? Was that why she pushed him away in that angry, intellectualized, uncompromising way that was pure Bones? Was she scared? Or, had he so insulted her that, even if she _was _interested, she would never deign to give him a chance?

_What the fuck? _he chastised himself. Acting like a jealous boyfriend in there, even though there was nothing between them. _Right? _He supposed it didn't matter anymore anyway, since it sure looked like he had squandered whatever chance he had with Bones with his angry, jealous, stupid rampage.

_What have I done?_

His head throbbed, his balls ached, and, despite three whiskeys and a shot of Cuervo, he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep that night.

_Dammit._

* * *

><p>Turning back to the bar, Brennan stared at the shot glass that now was her only remaining company. Still filled with its dark amber liquid, the tequila mocked her. The tempo of the music had picked up and filtered back into Brennan's conscious mind. At some point, probably the hour mark, the music beat changed. Whereas earlier it had been a type of steady, but hard rock, the beat of the music had become a bit faster, a bit more playful in its composition. Brennan remembered vaguely from Angela's earlier explanation about the DJs mixing the music to add variety for Gleam's eclectic mix of patrons. Moving her head slightly to the rhythm of the music, Brennan's eyes remained focused on the glass in front of her.<p>

"Who in the hell does he think he is?" Brennan said defiantly, to no one in particular. "He's just one male among millions. He's not special. There's nothing significant or different about him in the slightest. And, who in the hell cares what Seeley-fucking-Booth says anyway? I certainly don't."

_Lately people got me all tied up  
>There's a countdown waiting for me to erupt<br>Time to blow out  
>I've been told who I should do it with<br>To keep both my hands above the blanket  
>When the lights out<em>

_Shame on me  
>To need release<br>Uncontrollably_

"I'm _not_ drunk," Brennan said to the tequila shot. "I've drank _bhang_ and kept my head in a more inebriated state than this. I can move to whatever music I want, dance however I want, and do whatever I want whenever I want, including letting any male I want _except_ Booth take shots off my body if that's what I want to do. And, I don't need alcohol to make me do anything. This has absolutely nothing to do with alcohol. I'm not hard up, I'm not afraid of being irrational, and I know I'm certainly more than sexually talented enough to make certain that Booth has no regrets. I know that. I know _all _of it." Trying to push away her residual anger at Booth's taunts, Brennan continued rationalizing as she muttered to herself. "There's nothing I've done here tonight that I wouldn't do if I were completely sober, no matter what Booth says. So, I'm _not_ drunk."

"Then why are you talking to a shot glass, sweetheart? They're for drinking, not listening."

As the smarmy voice cut in on Brennan's analytical reflective process, she raised her eyes to the seat that Booth had vacated sometime before. In his place sat another male, and suddenly, Brennan was pissed off all over again.

"I'm aware that alcoholic shots are manufactured for consumption purposes, not for use as a therapeutic tool, thank you very much," Brennan said.

"Oh, I don't know. In the right amounts, alcohol can be very therapeutic. It gets you to do all types of things that you normally wouldn't do under normal circumstances."

"You know what? That's not true," Brennan shouted. "While it's a proven fact that the processing and fermentation of certain plants, such as the blue agave plant, in the case of tequila, or grains like rye or barley, in the case of whiskey, results in a product that in its distilled form has only minor side effects on those who imbibe any beverage concocted from said distilled spirits. _Minor_… as in, you can't get a person to do something they didn't want to do in the first place even if they've been drinking alcoholic beverages that resulted in a decreased set of inhibitions, so you're wrong."

Seeming to tune out for most of Brennan's longwinded diatribe, the man simply smiled when she finished and tried to be charming as he replied, "Then, if I'm wrong, I'm sorry, sweetheart. Why don't you let me buy you a drink to make it up to you?"

"Are you apologizing for your imprecise and inaccurate factual assumption about alcohol or are you apologizing for intruding upon an individual whose body language should be making it quite clear that she has no desire to be disturbed?" Brennan asked. "Furthermore, why do you keep calling me 'sweetheart'? I have nothing to do with sucrose nor in any way can I be misconstrued as being a cardiovascular organ."

"Wow," the man replied. Running his hands through short light brown hair that was frosted with blonde tips, he smiled and then said, "You really have a mouth on you, don't you?"

"Why wouldn't I?" Brennan asked in confusion. "Every individual, unless they were born with severe birth defects or suffered excessive physical trauma, has a mouth. You're being quite illogical."

Laughing, the interloper nodded at her. "You're funny." He paused for a minute, tilting his head and said, "Why don't you finish that shot, and let me buy you another one? My name's Steve."

Glancing from the shot glass to _Steve_… who was still sitting in Booth's chair, still wearing his stupid lime green Ralph Lauren polo shirt, with his ridiculous pressed, pleated designer khakis and effeminate light brown leather loafers… and with _far_ too much hair dye in his hair to be considered a beta… or even delta male, Brennan pursed her lips into a thin line. Raising her eyes back to him, Brennan said, "You know what? I find that the first half of your plan is acceptable, but I don't concur with the second portion of your suggested course of action."

"Uh… what?"

"You're an effeminate sub par male specimen," Brennan said, grabbing the shot. "And, I'm tired of being told what to do by any person with a fucking Y-chromosome who thinks they can just boss me around because I have a pair of ovaries and a uterus instead of a penis and pair of testicles… particularly when its some pseudo-alpha male wannabe like you who's trying to coerce my behavior and bend me to your will. I'm going to drink this shot and then go and reclaim my goddamn property because that's what _I_ want to do. My decision, my choice." Lifting her head back, Brennan poured the shot down her throat. Shaking her head vigorously, Brennan slammed the shot glass back on to bar as Steve still watched her.

"That's it?"

"Yes," Brennan said, hoping off her stool. "That's it. For your informational purposes, I don't require you to fulfill your offer of procuring any other alcoholic beverages for me to imbibe. Unlike the previous male, who was attempting to engage me in a reciprocal dialogue, but whose clumsy social skills made watching him endeavor to do so mildly amusing, I find no value in continuing our exchange. I don't find you to be amusing in the slightest, in either a humorous or ironic manner. You possess even less social capital than Rick did. Thus, such efforts on your part are unnecessary for two reasons. First, I will not be consuming any more alcohol before I depart this establishment forthwith. Second, it would be a waste of resources for you since any other attempt on your part to establish a further social rapport with me will automatically fail. I find your paltry efforts at seduction to be puerile and futile. Do you have any questions?"

Steve stared open-mouthed at Brennan, somewhat shocked, but remaining quiet. Brennan took his silence to affirm that he had no other questions. Nodding, she said, "Good. Then, this concludes our conversation."

"Wow," Steve replied at last, still in disbelief, as he stood and looked at Brennan. "I can't believe you just said that."

"As you were a primary witness in my verbalization of our current predicament, I don't see why you should have any issues about believing the veracity of my statements."

"Do you always talk like that?"

"Yes," Brennan said. "Why?"

"I just didn't think any woman that was as hot as you are could be so hard-up that she'd be such a cunt," Steve said. "You're a real bitch, you know that?"

"A bitch is a female canine," Brennan observed dryly. Placing her hands on her hips in a defensive stance, she then added, "However, as I believe you're attempting to use a colloquialism to insult my femininity by assigning me a stereotypically unflattering masculine descriptor and insinuating that I am sexually deprived, despite the fact that I'm in no way insulted by you calling me aggressive, since I _am_ an alpha female, or is it true that I can't get very satisfying sex anytime I want it, I believe I will just reply in kind. Fuck off."

And, with that, Brennan stomped past Steve in search of a more representative example of the anthropological label 'alpha male'.

Making her way out of the club, once outside, Brennan quickly hailed a cab. Climbing inside the taxi, Brennan gave the cab driver the address of Booth's apartment building, sat back, and contemplated her next action. There were several possible scenarios that ran through Brennan's brain, perhaps not as quickly as they normally did given the amount of tequila flowing through her bloodstream, but all of them ended in Brennan confronting Booth to secure the return of her phone. She wanted her phone back. Booth had no right to take it. _Insufferable prick_, Brennan thought, shaking her head in frustration. _I still can't believe he did that. And, Angela! How can she take Booth's side over mine? What the fuck?_

Brennan's internal monologue was interrupted as she focused on the song playing over the cab's radio, a soundtrack that had been playing quietly in the background as the automobile pulled out into traffic and moved towards Brennan's destination. The lyrics almost seemed to mock her.

_Well if you told me you were drowning  
>I would not lend a hand<br>I've seen your face before, my friend  
>But I don't know if you know who I am?<em>

_Well I was there and I saw what you did  
>I saw it with my own two eyes<br>So you can wipe off that grin  
>Know where you've been<br>It's all been a pack of lies_

_And I can feel it comin' in the air tonight, oh Lord  
>I've been waitin' for this moment, all my life, oh Lord<br>I can feel it, in the air tonight, oh Lord, oh Lord  
>And I've been waitin' for this moment all of my life, oh Lord<em>

_Oh Lord_

Brennan rolled her eyes at the singer's mention of the Judeo-Christian diety. _No, God is a fictional construct used by society to offer comfort to individuals who refuse to accept the randomness of life and their inability to cope with such deterministic and fatalistic truths. People like Booth. Arrogant people like Booth. Who in the hell does he think he is, anyway? He doesn't know me. He thinks he does, but he doesn't. He's wrong. He doesn't know me, not at all. He's wrong, so wrong. About that…about me. About everything_,

_Well I remember, I remember, don't worry  
>How could I ever forget?<br>It's the first time and the last time we ever met  
>But I have know the reason why you keep your silence, oh<br>No you don't fool me  
>'Cause the hurt doesn't show<br>The pain still grows  
>It's stranger to you and me<em>

_I can feel it comin' in the air tonight, oh Lord  
>I've been waitin' for this moment for all my life, oh Lord<br>I can feel it comin' in the air tonight, oh Lord  
>I've been waitin' for this moment all my life, oh Lord oh Lord<em>

Brennan nibbled her lip in agitation. _He's going to give me my phone back, and then—he'll see. Booth's wrong. So wrong._

The evening, despite earlier Booth's claim, was far from over, as far as Brennan was concerned. He wanted to see what exactly what she was willing to do or not, fine. They'd see. She wasn't scared, and Temperance Brennan was going to be damned—if, indeed, as an self-avowed atheist, she was incorrect and there just happened to be an afterlife of some sort—if she'd let Seeley Booth have the last word on this.

_Nope. Not a chance._

* * *

><p><em>Dammit.<em>

Booth's head throbbed, weighing heavily on his aching neck and shoulders like it was filled with thirty pounds of lead shot. And the way he'd acted that night, it might as well have been.

_What was I thinking?_

His balls ached. Bad. That whole—_thing—_in the nightclub was so surreal, so frustrating, so unbelievably out of control and so, so hot. He saw it in Bones' eyes: a total disconnect between her saying she didn't want him, and the look in her eyes that told him that she absolutely _did_ want him—even if she was now so thoroughly pissed off at him that she would march down to Cullen's office in the morning to demand that she be given a new FBI guy. But, wait—

_She wouldn't do that, right?_

His mind raced with thoughts of casual touches—his hand on her lower back, her hand on his arm, his head on her shoulder, her head on his shoulder, hugs and platonic embraces—and of a thousand conversations in the SUV, in the diner, at the Founding Fathers, at Wong-Foo's, and of a handful of missed opportunities.

_What did I do?_

Booth was driving himself insane. He stood there in his living room and held his hand out horizontally, parallel to the floor, and he saw it tremble. _Nerves. _

_I've gotta do something._

He walked to his bedroom, unbuttoning his wrinkled, sweat-stained dress shirt along the way. Shrugging out of his shirt, Booth unbuckled his belt, smirking grimly at his Cocky belt buckle as he slid the belt out of the loops and draped it over the valet next to his dresser.

_Cocky—a lot of good that did me._

He kicked off his wingtips and peeled off his pants, holding them up to his nose to see if they were good for another wearing or two before being banished to the dry cleaner. His nostrils flared as he smelled his own sweat and the faint scent of the nightclub, with its peculiar mix of stale beer, bodywash, and tequila. Booth tossed his slacks into his hamper with a soft clank sound that puzzled him but quickly fled his groggy mind, then leaned on the foot of his bed as he peeled off his blue, purple and yellow striped socks. He felt twitchy, every muscle and limb full of nervous energy. Clenching and unclenching his fists, he winced at the stinging sensation as he opened his split knuckle again, causing blood to ooze from it again.

_What a fucking dumbass I am…_

He stood there, wearing only his boxers, and tried to figure out what to do next. He was exhausted, but knew he wouldn't be able to sleep. He was full of nervous energy, but it was one o'clock in the morning, and he was too drunk to drive to the Hoover to use the gym there.

_Okay, back-up plan._

Booth walked back out to his living room and remembered the old bench press he'd bought a few months back at a tag sale he'd seen while driving through Columbia Heights on the way to interview a witness in a case was working. Glancing up at his CD collection, he pulled out a jewel box with a hand-written label that read, _Workout Mix. _He couldn't remember which of the guys at the Hoover had made the CD for him, but after flipping the case over and noting the songs included, he slid the disc into his stereo and settled down onto the weightlifting bench.

_Look, if you had one shot, or one opportunity  
>To seize everything you ever wanted in one moment<br>Would you capture it or just let it slip?  
>Yo…<em>

The throbbing bass was mildly irritating to Booth's throbbing head, but the beat gave him a good rhythm as he made sure his bare feet were flat on the floor and began lifting the barbell over his chest. _One. Two. Three…_

_He opens his mouth, but the words won't come out  
>He's choking how, everybody's joking now<br>The clock's run out, time's up over, pow!_

Booth felt the burning tightness spread across his arms, chest and shoulders as he slowly lifted the weight up and down again. He wasn't lifting the amount of weight he was used to lifting at the Hoover gym, but since he was in his living room, by himself with no spotter, half-drunk—well, it made sense to take it easy and bench-press less than he was fully capable of, and besides, he wasn't really doing this as part of his fitness program, but just to work off that maddening tingle of nervous energy that had been squeezing him in a vise since he'd left the nightclub. _Ten. Eleven. Twelve…_

_Snap back to reality, Oh there goes gravity  
>Oh, there goes Rabbit, he choked<br>He's so mad, but he won't give up that easy, no  
>He won't have it , he knows his whole back's to these ropes<br>It don't matter, he's dope  
>He knows that, but he's broke<br>He's so stagnant that he knows_

Booth had distracted his body and felt the anxious twitch in his muscles quiet down, but his mind was still racing. His mind seemed a jumble of images and sensations: the smell of that stocky young man—Rick, was it?—as he perspired nervously under Booth's withering glare, and the sound of Bones behind him, trying to defuse the rivals, and the cold fire of anger in her pale green eyes as he laid into her, accusing her of drunkenly abandoning herself to the clumsy, meaningless attentions of unworthy men. _Twenty-one._ _Twenty-two. Twenty-three…_

_No more games, I'm a change what you call rage  
>Tear this mothafuckin' roof off like two dogs caged<br>I was playin' in the beginning, the mood all changed  
>I been chewed up and spit out and booed off stage…<em>

Booth leaned his head back against the bench and gritted his teeth as he brought the barbell down to his chest and thrust it up again as slowly as he could, savoring the burning sensation as his pecs, deltoids, and triceps twitched faintly. _Thirty-two. Thirty-three. Thirty-four…_

_You better lose yourself in the music, the moment  
>You own it, you better never let it go<br>You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow  
>This opportunity comes once in a lifetime, yo!<em>

It was pointless. Booth lifted the barbell one last time and returned it to the uprights with a loud clank.

_Clank._

The sound startled him. He recalled the softer, muffled _clank _he had heard when he tossed his slacks into his laundry hamper, and then he remembered.

_Her phone._

He sat up on the weight bench and rubbed his eyes. Looking back, Booth was not sure why exactly he decided to take her phone, or whether he had even made a conscious decision to take it at the time. He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head at the thought of what he had done, and what he had said that night. Booth thought of what she had said to him, the unbelievable taunts and infuriating verbal jibes, and of him leaning close to her, inhaling her scent, his eyes raking across her chest—that gorgeous chest of hers, her wonderful breasts pushed up with a lovely cleft between them…

_Enough!_

He wiped the sweat from the back of his neck as he stood up from the bench and walked back to his bedroom. Booth grabbed a clean towel from the shelf in his closet and a clean pair of boxer-briefs from his dresser drawer, then went into the bathroom. His head was pounding. Hodgins should never have let him drink those three Jamesons in close succession. Booth opened his medicine cabinet and fumbled for the bottle of aspirin he kept there, and then rattled it next to his ear, sighing in relief as he heard two tablets clacking against each other inside.

Booth turned the water in the shower on, hesitating for a moment as to whether to let it run cold or hot. After a moment of thought, he adjusted the temperature, stripped off his sweaty boxers and stepped into his shower. In that instant, he felt grateful that he'd invested in a new high-pressure shower head as he enjoyed the way it pummeled his back with little needles of hot water. Booth felt his skin flush and tilted his head back, massaging his tired scalp. _What a day._ The images, one after the other, continued to assault his mind as he tried fending them off, one by one. _Useless. _

Booth felt that all-too familiar tugging sensation behind his navel as he thought about the way her breasts, shoulders and arms looked in that halter top and push-up bra. _Almost edible. _He glanced down at his throbbing hard on, and shook his head in disgust. _Fuck it_.

Closing his eyes, Booth reached down and fisted his cock, drawing his thumb across the tip as he clenched his eyes harder. Booth watched Brennan in his mind's eye, as if in slow motion, those wonderful breasts moving, bouncing ever so slightly as she reached for the shot glass on the bar and brought it to her chest, nestling the cool, smooth glass in the cleft between her tits. She looked up at him, her pale eyes gleaming with anticipation, normally a light green, but darkened with arousal to a teal blue as she looked at Booth with a devilish grin on her lips, revealing the teeth on one side of her mouth the way her smile always did when she was discussing something sexy. Booth stroked his thumb across the underside of the tip of his cock, smearing the drops of precum and drawing a deep breath at the sensation. Brennan rolled her shoulder toward him as he brought his tongue across her collarbone, gathering the grains of salt on the point of his tongue and tasting her sweet, tangy sweat as he did so. He felt Brennan shiver at the touch of his tongue on her skin, a tremor so violent that it made him shudder, too. His fist closed tightly around his cock, sliding up and down, dragging his skin beneath his fingers as he watched himself bend down, his lips closing around the cool, smooth surface of the shot glass and, with a slight tug, released it from where it sat cradled in the cleft between her luscious tits as Booth threw his head back, the liquid searing his throat on the way down. Booth felt himself harden even more as the tugging feeling belong his navel became almost painful. He leaned in and covered Brennan's mouth with his, her lips opening under his and, with a flick of her tongue, Brennan passed him a small wedge of lime which he scooped onto his tongue, the tangy flavor a dramatic contrast to the harsh burn of the tequila and the sweet taste of her mouth. Their eyes locked, and Brennan's gaze twinkled at him in an unspoken promise as she made a silent dare. As Booth pulled his lips away from hers, his balls tensed and tightened, his hips jerked, and he felt his release pulse out of him as he groaned softly, the evidence of his orgasm splattering onto the fine, curly hair of his thigh before being rinsed down the drain by the firm pulse of the shower's steady stream of water.

_God, Bones…_

Booth leaned against the wall of his shower, his forehead pressed to the cold tile as he caught his breath. He was sure he had never come so hard in his own hand as he had just then.

_What am I doing?_

This is madness, he told himself. Surely, after what he said to her and what she said back to him, there could be no doubt that the two of them could never be more than they were already. _Just partners. _He needed to get laid, to find another outlet for his physical desires so that he could stop tying himself up in knots with unresolved, unrequited desire for his partner, and so he could stop doing _this—_jacking off in his shower to images of his partner splayed before him, glistening with sweat, moist with desire, her arms reaching out toward him in a dare—

_Stop._

He jerked the shower curtain open and stepped out onto the mat. Booth toweled himself off and reached for the clean pair of underwear that he'd hung on the towel rack. Stepping into his boxer-briefs, he sighed. He knew he was still not ready for sleep. He felt a little better after working out with the weights and—well, working out something else in the shower—but he still felt twitchy and uneasy. He rubbed the towel one last time over his head, leaving this dark brown hair drier, but in total disarray, grabbed the bottle of aspirin and walked into his kitchen.

He opened his fridge and groaned. He had a six-pack of Yuengling beer (_ugh—_as if he needed more to drink after the three Jamesons and that ill-advised shot of Cuervo), a half-gallon of whole milk that he wasn't sure was even still good (the sniff test would tell), a half-empty two-liter bottle of Sunkist soda that he was sure hadn't been touched since Parker's last visit a couple of weekends before (which meant it was probably mostly flat), and a couple of bottles of water. He reached for the bottles of water and a couple of slices of cold, leftover pepperoni pizza, then walked into his living room and plopped himself on his couch.

He reached for the remote and turned on the TV. It was late, and all he could find to watch was _ESPN_ _SportsCenter_ (though he'd already seen the scores while sitting at the bar with Hodgins, and didn't really want to hear a rehash of how the Flyers flubbed that night's game against the Maple Leafs, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in epic fashion), no interesting movies he hadn't already seen a thousand times before, and they weren't even that good the first time (particularly the Cinemax-After-Dark moaning and groaning selection of the night—_fuck no!_), infomercials, and reruns: _Car 54, Where Are You?_ (Booth refused as a matter of principle to watch cop-related TV shows, even comedies—_click_), _The Waltons _("Goodnight, John-Boy"_—click), Dallas _(the episode where Pam walks in to find Bobby in the shower, revealing that all of the entire eighth season was a dream—_ugh, click_), and _Moonlighting. _Booth paused his channel-surfing for a few minutes and tried to get into that particular episode of _Moonlighting. _Back in the day, when he was in high school, he had enjoyed the show. It was funny, snarky, and clever, and Cybill Shepherd was all kinds of hot. But, as he watched the show for a few minutes, it began to annoy him, the same way Howard Jones had annoyed him in the car on the way home from the nightclub. It was if the two characters—with the sexual tension that crackled between them and their constant games of verbal tennis—were taunting him, daring him somehow to make a move with Bones. _Click._

_What's the point?_

There was no chance, at this stage, with all the angry words that passed between them that night, for anything good to come of it. So what was the point of torturing himself about it.

He shut off the TV, stood up and walked over to his stereo when he heard something—an agitated voice in the hall.

"Booth!"

For a moment, his heart stopped. _No, couldn't be_, he thought.

"It's me. I want my phone back. Open up!"

It was Bones' voice in the hall.

Outside _his _door.

"Oh, God," he muttered as he stared at his door, upon which he could hear and see the slight reverberation of Brennan banging on the door frame.

"BOOTH!"

_Seriously? What's happening… Bones?_

* * *

><p><em>Is that an evil cliffhanger? Maybe just a little. But the more evil the cliffhanger,<br>the juicier the tension, and the more satisfying the resolution, right?_

_OK people, now don't forget to add **Lesera128** to your author alerts so  
>you'll get that precious email when she posts "Costly Signals: Part Two"<em>

_Otherwise, you might miss out on all the **crazysexyhot** that's coming up in Part Two.  
>(And, believe us, if that little scene with Booth in the shower is any indication,<br>you don't want to miss what we've got for you in Part Two...)_

_Oh, and by the way...if you have the time, please leave us a review.  
>Let us know what you think of this crazy little fic so far.<br>_

_Thanks!_

_~ **Lesera128** and **dharmamonkey** ~  
><em>


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